EDM613 - WK 1 Reading - Keep it fair

It seems to me that the biggest part about all the copyright laws and creative commons is that people need to keep things fair, just like in love and war. If something was created by a person, they have a right to use it for profit if they want to. They also have the right to give it away for free. This leads to the idea of users of created material keeping it fair. Users need to give credit where credit is due and if that includes monetary compensation then so be it.
One of the hardest parts for me to hear was that fair use is not applicable until possibly too late. As an educator, I thought I had more freedom than I do, even though I give credit to where I have gotten materials. It saddens me to think that because someone does not want to make a fair price for the use of their materials, some of the greatest videos of history are no longer available for my students. Once again, keep it fair. Sharing your productions sometimes also might mean, giving up some of your rights for the betterment of the whole. Granted you have the right to deny the use of, but what does that say about you as a person?
One of the most frustrating stances my school district has taken is that no child should fail. In this effort, copyright infringement has become the norm. The students are either copying and pasting from the internet for their research projects, or just copying each others in different paragraph orders. If the students could receive a failing grade for the production of such uneducated material as this then the students that are growing up in a world without boundaries are going to live as though none ever existed.