Wk1 Comment 2 Copyright Issues Response to Meghan Bassett

My response to Meghan Bassett's Blog Post. Here original post is below my response.

Oh how I have a soft spot in my heart for Art Teachers. My wife is an art teacher and I truly love seeing pictures of the finished products that her students complete.

One of my favorites that she has her students do is to have a grade level create a wall sized version of "Starry Night". It was your final question of looking into artwork copyright that brings this particular project to my mind. Copyright for individual work is lifetime + 70 years. Not being up on art history I think she's in the clear on that particular work. However, can the same be said for having students attempt to replicate the styles of say Salvadore Dali or Andy Warhol?

Valid questions indeed when trying to teach students certain genre/artists and keeping the copyright law on your side.

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 Meghan Bassett's Blog Post

Being an Art Teacher, I always worry about my students copying work. In fact, one of my 4 rules in my classroom is no copying or ‘borrowing’ previously created characters. I do allow my students one project where they can use what they want, but that doesn’t get published anywhere.
The film brought up a great point when it comes to music. I sometimes hear a song and could swear I had heard it before. At times I have taken the time to think about it, at pinpoint what part of the song I recognized in the other song. They use such similar elements that it has to be so complicated to make a copyright infringement decision.
That being said, how much more recognizable would our work be, and how more into our work would our students be, if we could use samples of music that they can relate to? Not saying we should or could use them, but I think as far as education goes, it would be extremely useful if we could. For my screenflow videos, I use the tools taught to me in Music Theory and try to create my own music. In theory this is a great idea, but it’s time consuming and not always what I want.
I have to look a little more into artwork copyright laws at least for my students sake. My students aren’t obviously trying to steal anything from other artists, but are trying to emulate them to learn their techniques.