11.5- Thing 11

This was an interesting topic. I think with the age group I teach, 6th grade, my most important lesson is to teach by example. If I credit online sources and require that they do, it teaches in an indirect way what acceptable behavior would be. If I discuss safe passwords, appropriate content, etc. it would be in the context of a specific assignment.

Here's my question: How do you get past "everyone does it" which seems to have affected even adults?

A few years ago a piece of my rubberstamp work was published in a craft magazine. Some time later a lady was selling that issue on EBay and wrote to tell me that she recognized my artwork.

I looked and not only was the cover featured (not mine), but a closeup of my work which was inside. I immediately objected. Her counter was to spew a long list of copyright law cherrypicked to defend her position. I consulted an attorney friend of mine who specialized in online copyright and intellectual property. She gave me some arguments to use, but warned me that people are particularly obnoxious on this point. So I wrote the woman again requesting that she take the photo down and quoting my friend (and making sure she knew I spoke with an attorney). This went back and forth for a while. At one point I got "Well everyone does it, it's not that big a deal". Finally she did take it down. However, several years later a similar situation happened with another woman (she copied a picture of mine "for reference" and didn't ask first). I again objected. Her parting shot was "Everyone does it and you can't do anything about it." So it's not just teenagers. Adults are also the problem.

And how do you talk to kids about this? With all that "invincible" stuff they have going on, my guess is that this is an uphill slog.