We learned about Fair Use and Copyright a couple of weeks ago in class, and it surprised me that there were so many rules and regulations and exceptions. I thought that copyright basically meant that you couldn't copy things right out of books and download music and movies off the internet. But boy was I wrong!! A copyright used to last only a few years, but now it is a lifetime plus some and even longer for corporations. I can understand not wanting people to steal your product, but wow. There are lots of rules about using things for education. Most of the time when something is used for education it is ok to use. BUT this dose not just mean that you can show a movie in class then. And if you copy papers, students can't keep them.

The copyright issue is so deep it's hard understand, but as a Christan, I still need to obey these laws no matter how inconvenient and annoying they may be. It is really easy to just let it slide and to plead ignorance, but now that I know some of these laws now, I can't just let them slide. Thankfully if you want to use something most of the time all you have to do is send an e-mail and get permission, and thankfully people are pretty nice about it. And if you don't know, e-mailing is easy enough that it won't hurt just to ask. So in the case of copyright laws, it is easier to ask permission than forgiveness.