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259
CHAPTER 13
Teaching Copyle as
a Critical Approach to
“Information Has Value”
Kenneth Haggerty and Rachel E. Scott
Introduction
e credit-bearing classroom provides librarians with expanded opportu-
nities to connect with students as teachers, mentors, and advocates. Both
the content and approach of one-shot sessions are oen driven by faculty
requests for resource-based instruction. Librarians teaching credit-bearing
classes do not face the same constraints on their time with students or lim-
itations on instructional content. Accordingly, librarians in credit-bearing
settings can go beyond demonstrating databases or teaching discrete skills
to engage students in learning research concepts and to advocate for infor-
mation-related social justice issues. One such advocacy issue is copyle, a
movement responding to the constraints of traditional copyright by allow-
ing the licensed work to be used, modied, and distributed as determined
by the work’s creator. By introducing students to the copyle movement,
librarians can encourage students to make their works more freely avail-
able and to engage in the conversation of scholarship. is chapter pres-
ents a case study of a research methods course in which students created
and embedded Creative Commons licenses in digital platforms in order to
encourage learners to critically evaluate the production and value of infor-
mation.
Critical approaches to both information literacy pedagogy and tradi-
tional copyright situate this case study within critical pedagogy literature.
Critical librarianship is interested not only in pedagogical practices, bar-
riers to access, and cost of resources, but also more broadly in questioning
260 Chapter 13
existing and inherent power structures in systems, organizations, and re-
lationships. In this case study, students actively question traditional copy-
right, publishing systems, and the teacher-led classroom. e course and
much of its content were inspired by critical information literacy, a practice
that librarian Eamon Tewell notes, “asks librarians to work with their pa-
trons and communities to co-investigate the political, social, and economic
dimensions of information, including its creation, access, and use.”1 In this
course, the students, instructor, and librarian collaborated to ask questions
and understand ideas and practices surrounding the production and use of
information in various contexts.
From “Accesses and Uses Information Ethically and
Legally” to “Information Has Value”
e Association of College & Research Libraries’ (ACRL) Framework for
Information Literacy for Higher Education (Framework) provides a theoret-
ical lens through which various research and information literacy concepts
may be viewed. e Framework was intended to replace the ACRL Infor-
mation Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (Standards),
though some librarians and information professionals have identied
complementary uses for both.2 Several have written on the relative vir-
tues of the Framework and Standards from a critical information literacy
perspective.3 Conceptualizing the “information literate student” who has
acquired skills, as in the Standards, removes the individual’s agency and
perpetuates the banking model of education in which students passively
receive and store information.4
e frame Information Has Value can promote useful discussions sur-
rounding information as a commodity, a common good, a change agent,
and/or a means of education. e overarching idea is that the importance
of information varies contextually and culturally. Accordingly, the ways in
which one signies and ascribes value to the idea and practice of informa-
tion are highly variable and oen governed by economic, educational, and
publishing systems. e complexity surrounding the many values of infor-
mation is not limited by prescriptive performance indicators as in the rele-
vant Standard. Additionally, Information Has Value encourages learners to
acknowledge their own information contributions and to make informed
and respectful decisions about their own and others’ information. e ex-
plicitly participatory nature of this frame diers from the relevant Stan-
Teaching Copyleft as a Critical Approach to “Information Has Value” 261
dard’s objectives, which only address “the information literate student’s”
use of others’ information.
Information Has Value provides a broad and useful system for under-
standing some of the many values that information oers and also address-
es the need for equal access to information. e frame explicitly mentions
publishing practices, intellectual property laws, author’s rights, and access
to proprietary information, all of which independently represent complex
systems with which even experts may struggle. Paired with these legal, eco-
nomic, and technological issues is the possibility of leveraging information
to bring about civic and social change. By acknowledging existing legal
and corporate structures, but also advocating for social justice, this frame
parallels the copyle movement.
Copyle as a Critical Response to
Copyright
Although the rst copyright law in the United States was passed in 1790,
the notion of protecting the creative works of authors and inventors origi-
nated as a result of the leading publishers in England requesting perpetual
rights to the works of authors in the early eighteenth century. e rst stat-
ute that recognized the rights of authors was the Statute of Anne that was
passed by the Parliament of Great Britain in 1710.5 e Statute of Anne had
a signicant impact on the provisions of the Copyright Act of 1790 in the
United States, including fourteen years of copyright protection for author’s
works and the right to renew for fourteen additional years. Similar to the
Statute of Anne, copyright law in the United States was originally meant to
protect the works of individual creators. According to Article 1, Section 8
of the US Constitution, the goal of copyright law in the United States is to
promote the progression of knowledge by “securing for limited Times to
Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and
Discoveries.”6
Since the original copyright law passed in 1790, there have been con-
siderable changes to the types of works that are protected and the limita-
tions on copyright, such as fair use and the length of time works receive
protection. Currently, copyrights are primarily regulated by the Copyright
Act of 1976, which includes the fair use doctrine. Fair use allows limit-
ed use of copyright-protected works if the use falls under the purpose of
262 Chapter 13
“criticism, comment, news report, teaching (including multiple copies for
classroom use), scholarship, or research.”7 In addition to fair use, another
aspect of copyright is that aer a certain period of time, works lose copy-
right protection and fall into the public domain. However, the amount of
time in which works receive protection has continued to increase. In 1998,
Congress once again prolonged the duration of copyright under the Sonny
Bono Copyright Term Extension Act by increasing copyright protection
from life of the author plus y years to life of the author plus seventy
years. In the case of works made for hire and anonymous or pseudony-
mous works, copyright was extended to 120 years aer creation or nine-
ty-ve years aer the work is published, whichever is the shortest.8
Many of the changes to copyright legislation over the past two cen-
turies have beneted corporate interests. In Free Culture: e Nature and
Future of Creativity, Lawrence Lessig describes how corporations control
the stream of creative eorts by independent creators. Lessig’s solution to
this issue was to establish Creative Commons, the goal of which is “to build
a layer of reasonable copyright on top of the extremes that now reign.”9 En-
couraging the previously “excluded middle” to determine how their con-
tent is used empowers individuals who previously had only one option and
few protections. Creative Commons lets individual creators protect their
works while allowing others to freely learn and build upon those creations
by providing creators with the ability to select and apply a license to their
works that allocates the extent to which users may share, adapt, distribute,
or sell their copyrighted materials. As an organization that is becoming
more common among digital libraries, such as the Internet Archive and
the Digital Public Library of America, Creative Commons has become in-
grained in our society as a copyright alternative.
With such a long and complex history, students may not be familiar
with traditional copyright laws, let alone the copyle movement. Although
not always the case, librarians have a responsibility to empower creators
to understand the basic limitations and requirements of copyright and to
present them with an alternative. e development of the internet has made
it easier for individuals to share their copyrighted works with people all
over the world. e ease of digitally sharing content has also made it easier
to infringe upon the works of others. Yet, the possibility of infringement
should not prevent individual artists from having the ability to decide how
accessible they would like their works to be. Although individual creators
Teaching Copyleft as a Critical Approach to “Information Has Value” 263
have a nancial incentive to produce, they may also have an interest in how
other creators may build upon their works. Creators should have a choice
concerning how accessible their works are and whether other creators can
make a prot o their materials. In addition, creators should have the abil-
ity to forfeit the copyright protections of their works and donate their cre-
ations to the public domain. Creative Commons allows creators to make
these decisions and provides a valuable alternative to traditional copyright,
which is why it is important for students to be exposed to the opportunities
provided through Creative Commons.
Copyle in the Critical Classroom
Selecting, acquiring, and promoting the use of traditionally licensed library
content means that librarians devote much time and energy to copyrighted
materials. In a recent talk at the University of New Mexico, librarian and
author Barbara Fister remarked that “we spend a lot of time explaining
libraries and their systems without connecting them to larger information
systems.”10 As systems librarians, we are keenly aware of our conicting
roles in perpetuating and protecting proprietary information systems and
advocating for open access and copyle. In order to promote critical un-
derstanding of proprietary information platforms and systems and to con-
nect these systems to the broader information ecosystem, we collaborated
to introduce students in a semester-long introductory research class to
Creative Commons licenses.
Librarians and educators have taken dierent approaches to teaching
students to think critically about copyright. In a 2005 article on critical in-
formation literacy, Michelle Holschuh Simmons wrote that despite librar-
ians’ good intentions, one-shot library instruction of ACRL Standard ve,
“the information literate student understands many of the economic, legal,
and social issues surrounding the use of information and accesses and uses
information ethically and legally”11 was oen limited to a warning about
plagiarism. She asserted that “in order for information literacy to earn
its place of respect in the higher education curriculum, this last standard
should infuse all instruction instead of being an add-on.”12 David Warlick,
who researches education and technology integration, wrote that “the best
way to help students understand and appreciate information as valuable
property is to make them property owners.”13 is approach obviously
264 Chapter 13
helps students appreciate the potential economic value of their work but
also perpetuates the dominant system of copyright. Warlick also advocated
for the instruction of Creative Commons licenses. Librarian Lili Luo’s sur-
vey of participatory digital platforms integration in information literacy
instruction revealed various integrated approaches to teaching both copy-
right and copyle: “e way information is created and distributed …(e.g.,
many users of Flickr choose to oer their work under a Creative Commons
license) is used to teach copyright from a positive angle.”14 By situating
copyright and copyle instruction in familiar digital platforms, students
may experience fewer obstacles to engaging with the topic at hand. Addi-
tionally, the participatory nature of these platforms can empower students
to establish parameters for how others will be expected to cite and use their
work.
Honors Forum Case Study
e course in question, Honors Forum (UNHP 1100), is a one-credit hour
requirement for incoming honors students. As the course is only oered in
the fall semester, most students are in the rst semester of their rst year.
UNHP 1100 sections are taught by faculty and sta from various academic
and administrative departments. Instructors submit course proposals out-
lining their theme and approach and are selected on a competitive basis.
University of Memphis Libraries currently oer no credit-bearing courses;
teaching UNHP 1100 provides an opportunity to work closely with stu-
dents and cover topics of interest over the course of a semester. Rachel has
taught the course in the fall semesters of 2015, 2016, and 2017, and invited
her new colleague, Kenneth, who has expertise in copyright, to collabo-
rate on a copyright and copyle session. Rachel plans the introductory re-
search class around campus history and addresses each of the six frames in
the Framework. In the class syllabus, the relevant objective for the Frame
Information Has Value was presented by asking students to value infor-
mation by using it “ethically and with an understanding of its context.”15
e syllabus also included a required statement on academic misconduct,
which addresses the appropriate use of information.
roughout the semester, classes would begin with a discussion of the
relevant ACRL frame. is is done to promote transparency about learn-
ing goals and to solicit student input on the concepts. Very oen, students
oered a dierent perspective or examples from their own experience to
Teaching Copyleft as a Critical Approach to “Information Has Value” 265
echo the frame. Rachel prepared a few questions for each class meant to
facilitate conversation about the concepts behind the frame. e goal was
to let students take control of the direction of the conversation. On the
few occasions in which conversation was less lively, slides with denitions,
examples, and applications of the frame were presented and discussed. e
slides were always posted to the class web space and oered to students
as a supplemental resource, should they need some support while writing
weekly reection essays.
Prior to the Information Has Value session, the class studied the Frame
Scholarship as Conversation. One of the classroom exercises for that frame
was a group analysis of the citations in a Slate news article. Students took
turns discussing the source quoted or referred to and the ways in which
the author engaged with the original source. By discussing what types of
individuals and organizations were cited, this exercise led to discussions of
how individuals may be excluded from participating in information cre-
ation or dissemination. e associated assignment for Scholarship as Con-
versation asked students to reect on how they had incorporated others’
information in their prior academic writing. e Information Has Value
instruction targeted knowledge practices related to personal information
and authorial responsibility that had not yet been substantively addressed
in the course, but by making explicit the need to specify how others use
and acknowledge one’s own work, it also related back to previous instruc-
tion on Scholarship as Conversation.
e goal of the Information Has Value session was to impart what
values are legally ascribed to information and to introduce students to
concepts of copyright, fair use, patents, and the public domain. One
knowledge practice associated with this frame, the importance of citing
other’s ideas and work, was reinforced throughout the semester with short
assignments that required students to incorporate a few external sourc-
es into brief essays. Rachel has taught the course on three occasions and
twice invited an attorney to speak with the class about the value of infor-
mation from a legal perspective. One semester, the attorney focused on
the 2015 Google Books decision and another semester he played several
musical examples to discuss sampling and copyright infringement. Stu-
dents engaged by asking questions about covering songs, dierences be-
tween patents and copyright, and the necessity and role of Creative Com-
mons licenses.
266 Chapter 13
e introduction to the Frame Information Has Value states that “legal
and socioeconomic interests inuence information production and dis-
semination.”16 is concept is likely not something that incoming under-
graduate students will have been explicitly taught in a classroom. However,
students certainly may have begun to question the legal and ethical impli-
cations of downloading content without paying, for example. By explicitly
asking students about their own experience with or concerns about ethical
and legal information use, we acknowledged the knowledge students bring
to the classroom. Accordingly, it was interesting to learn where and how
students had encountered Creative Commons licenses online and what
they had understood their purpose to be. Many students reported that the
Creative Commons logo was indeed familiar, but none had specically in-
vestigated what the Creative Commons license meant for their interactions
with the content.
Aer exposing students to existing laws and discussing how the law
constrains the dissemination of information, we wanted to provide the stu-
dents with an opportunity to question the need for traditional copyright in
digital settings. e goal was to develop an assignment that would facilitate
discussion surrounding the conditions of information production, enable
students to investigate copyright alternatives, and understand their rights
and responsibilities as information creators. To this end, students were
asked to select and embed a Creative Commons license in their work and
to write a 500-word reective essay on the decisions they made throughout
the process. Students chose a previously created work in any format that
they are willing to digitally share with the instructor. Some used Flickr and
Google Drive to publicly share the content, but most content is unlikely
to be found by people outside of the course. Work was broadly dened
as anything they created. Students selected digital photographs, digitized
artwork, song lyrics, other creative writing excerpts, previously submit-
ted papers or class assignments, and other works. ey used the Creative
Commons website to select an appropriate license and then embedded the
code generated in any online platform.
In their reective essays, students posed several questions about the
process of selecting a Creative Commons license. e questions of how and
if other people could actually prot from their work was eye-opening for
many students and opened the door for conversations about commodica-
tion of personal information, how websites generate funds from advertis-
Teaching Copyleft as a Critical Approach to “Information Has Value” 267
ing, and other topics. Some students asked about the license option, “Allow
adaptations of your work to be shared?” Although many acknowledged
that they had adapted other people’s content found online, some could not
fathom that their content would hold the same interest to others. Rachel
provided written feedback to all students and indicated their relative open-
ness using Creative Commons scale from the most open: CC0 (Waiver)
to the most restrictive license CC BY-NC-ND. Perhaps empowered by the
opportunity to assert their authorial control, many students opted for more
restrictive licenses and none opted for a waiver. e newness of the concept
Information Has Value was clearly depicted in the students’ reections; the
surprise that their ideas, words, or artistic work had value was a common
theme throughout the essays.
By teaching Creative Commons, we advocate for enhanced student
awareness of copyright and copyle. Anchoring instruction in the ACRL
Frame allows librarians to draw on several useful knowledge practices
and dispositions. Where the Standards were previously employed to teach
citation and ethical use of proprietary information, the Frame Informa-
tion Has Value has helped Rachel ask questions that encourage students
not only to respect others’ ideas and content but also to respect their own
contributions. By asking students to apply a Creative Commons license
to their own ideas and hard work, we reinforced the value of their own
information.
Conclusion
e goal of this instruction is to empower students to shi from passive
consumer and user of information to informed creator and intention-
al disseminator. We hoped that by demonstrating the utility of Creative
Commons and encouraging students to appreciate the ways in which they
contribute information, they would gain condence to participate in the
ongoing conversation of scholarship. Instead of limiting discussion to the
nancial incentives associated with information creation, students are en-
couraged to consider the value of information to educate, empower, in-
spire, and resist.
US copyright law has become increasingly pro-corporation and Cre-
ative Commons licenses provide one opportunity to discuss copyright’s
restrictions. is perspective acknowledges the commodication of in-
268 Chapter 13
formation but also broadens conversations surrounding the students’ per-
ceptions of the value of information. By exploring Creative Commons li-
censing options and comparing them to traditional copyright, students not
only gain condence to critically examine copyright but also to question
corporate publishing models that they will continue to encounter outside
of academia.
Endnotes
1. Eamon Tewell, “Putting Critical Information Literacy into Context: How and
Why Librarians Adopt Critical Practices in their Teaching,” In the Library with a
Lead Pipe (October 2016).
2. Lisa Janicke Hinchlie, “Can a Constellation Be Critical? e Position(s) of the
ACRL Framework and ACRL Standards for Information Literacy,” paper pre-
sented at the 15th Annual Illinois Information Literacy Summit (April 29, 2016).
3. Ian Beilin, “Beyond the reshold: Conformity, Resistance, and the ACRL
Information Literacy Framework for Higher Education.” In the Library with the
Lead Pipe (February 2015); Emily Drabinski and Meghan Sitar, “What Standards
Do and What ey Don’t,” in Critical Library Pedagogy Handbook, eds. Nicole
Pagowsky and Kelly McElroy (Chicago: Association of College and Research Li-
braries, 2016); Nancy M. Foasberg, “From Standards to Frameworks for IL: How
the ACRL Framework Addresses Critiques of the Standards,” portal: Libraries
and the Academy 15, no. 4 (2015): 699–717.
4. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum, 1993).
5. 8 Anne c. 19, 1710.
6. U. S. Constitution, article I, § 8.
7. United States Code. Title 17, Section 107.
8. United States Code. Title 17, Section 302.
9. Ibid., 282.
10. Barbara Fister, “Practicing Freedom for the Post-truth Era,” speech delivered at
University of New Mexico (March 9, 2017), 14.
11. Association of College and Research Libraries, Information Literacy Competency
Standards for Higher Education, accessed January 25, 2018, http://www.alair.ala.
org/handle/11213/7668.
12. Michelle Holschuh Simmons, “Librarians as Disciplinary Discourse Mediators:
Using Genre eory to Move Toward Critical Information Literacy,” portal:
Libraries and the Academy 5, no. 3 (2005): 300.
13. David Warlick, Redening Literacy 2.0 (Columbus, OH: Linworth Publishing,
2009), 140.
14. Lili Luo, “Web 2.0 Integration in Information Literacy Instruction: An Over-
view,” e Journal of Academic Librarianship 36, no. 1 (2010): 38.
Teaching Copyleft as a Critical Approach to “Information Has Value” 269
15. Rachel Scott, UNHP 1100 Syllabus, 2016.
16. Association of College and Research Libraries, Framework for Information Liter-
acy for Higher Education, accessed July 1, 2017, http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.
org.acrl/les/content/issues/infolit/Framework_ILHE.pdf.
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