COPYRIGHT ALLIANCE LAUNCHES NEW EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION
May 21, 2009
WASHINGTON—The Copyright Alliance today launched the Copyright Alliance Education Foundation (www.copyrightfoundation.org), a new non-profit charitable arm of the Alliance that will develop educational programs aimed at helping America’s next generation of creators succeed.
The Foundation announced its first projects, already underway: development and distribution of a copyright curriculum for educators; and a partnership with the West Potomac Academy of Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, to refine Alliance curriculum materials and supplement them with information important to arts education.
“Our nation has reaped the rewards both culturally and economically of the principle and practice of copyright,” said Patrick Ross, Copyright Alliance Executive Director. “This system has served us well for centuries - so much so, that it has become an invisible underpinning in our country’s prosperity. Now, as a new generation of creators populates today’s classrooms, we must ensure that principle is not taken for granted and continues to be a foundation for creative success.”
Ross will serve as the Foundation’s Chairman of the Board. Serving as Executive Director is Gayle Osterberg, who helped establish the Alliance and has managed public relations and education projects for the Alliance since its inception.
The Foundation will develop and implement educational projects designed to meet two goals. 1) Help maintain a copyright-aware environment in the nation’s classrooms to ensure creators’ long-term ability to thrive. 2) Provide educational resources to future creators.
The Alliance has developed a pilot curriculum for teachers, “Think First, Copy Later”, a comprehensive multi-faceted program designed to help librarians and media specialists answer questions and provide information about copyright in the classroom to other educators. The materials were distributed to 5,000 librarians and media specialists this spring to gauge usefulness.
Schools including West Potomac Academy will provide more detailed insights and feedback to the curriculum, which in development during the last year with Young Minds Inspired and its panel of educator advisors. The Alliance will distribute the materials more broadly prior to the 2009-2010 school year.
“Initial feedback from educators has been extremely positive and has confirmed our belief that these types of resources will be useful and informative to educators in all grades and across a range of disciplines,” Ross said. “Working directly with arts educators at West Potomac, which will serve on the Foundation’s board, will help make the program even more robust and relevant to the classroom. We anticipate forming direct partnerships with more individual schools and school districts in the weeks and months to come.”
ATTACHED: Fact sheet regarding Foundation curricula
ABOUT THE COPYRIGHT ALLIANCE
The Copyright Alliance is a non-profit, non-partisan educational organization dedicated to the value of copyright as an agent for creativity, jobs and growth. For more information, please visit http://www.copyrightalliance.org/.
Members of the Copyright Alliance include: American Federation of Musicians; American Federation of Television & Radio Artists; American Intellectual Property Law Association; American Photographic Artists; American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers; American Society of Media Photographers; Association of American Publishers; Association of Independent Music Publishers; AT&T; Broadcast Music, Inc.; Business Software Alliance; CBS Corporation; Church Music Publishers Association; Directors Guild of America; Entertainment Software Association; Graphic Artists Guild; Langley Productions; Magazine Publishers of America; Motion Picture Association of America; National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR); National Association of Broadcasters; National Collegiate Athletic Association; National Music Publishers' Association; National Basketball Association Properties, Inc.; NBC Universal; News Corporation; Newspaper Association of America; Picture Archive Council of America; PPL and VPL; Professional Photographers of America; Professional School Photographers Association; Recording Industry Association of America; Reed Elsevier; SESAC; Software & Information Industry Association; Sony Pictures Entertainment; Time Warner; Universal Music Group; Viacom; The Walt Disney Company; and Writers Guild of America, West.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://www.copyrightalliance.org/
CONTACT: Gayle Osterberg, 202/669-0689
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