I hate being copyright cop
If there’s one thing about my job I genuinely dislike, it’s having to play copyright cop. At least I’m not the official campus copyright cop; that’s somebody else.
I got a bunch of great lesson-plans and supporting material from an NEH Summer Institute last summer for the repository. One of the files, though, I had to pretty much eviscerate, because it had a bunch of song lyrics, pictures, and other things that were in copyright. No chance of clearing it all; at least one picture repository charged mucho royalty bucks, and I have no budget. So I hacked it out and posted what was left. (I shan’t inquire too closely into the source of some of the unattributed stuff, either. In my best professional judgment, it was old enough to be public-domain.)
I hate doing that. I so much prefer remix culture. I feel like I traduced a really great teacher, only I had no choice in the matter.
Creative Commons can’t catch on soon enough.