Are Screen Captures Copyrighted?

Image via Wikipedia

One of my students asked me a copyright question about screen captures recently that I couldn't answer.

After teaching them about how to make a screen capture and suggesting that this would be a great thing to use when creating tutorials. An educator could take screen shots of software while progressing through the software and then write accompanying instructions.

Here's the question "Aren't those screen captures copyrighted?" I didn't know the answer.

I would imagine that under fair-use guidelines, an educator could include screen captures that are used in the classroom.

The question lies in whether or not such a tutorial could be posted on the web for free distribution. At another level, what about selling the tutorial to others? Do you need to pay a copyright royalty to Microsoft if you use screen captures of Microsoft Word in a tutorial book?

What do you think?

How Twitter's spectacular growth is being driven by unexpected uses - Evan Willams at TED Talks

Just listened to Evan Williams, founder of Twitter, on TED Talks. In his 8-minute talk, he explained how Twitter was molded by how users used it instead of how the company designed it. Here are some highlights from the lecture:

• Defined Twitter as "Say what you are doing in 140 characters or less. People who are interested in you get those updates. If they are REALLY interested in you, they will get those updates on their cell phones."
• Twitter lets people share their lives - both the spectacular and mundane.
• He didn't anticipate how important Twitter could be in real time events.
• Information was shared during the San Diego fires.
• There are currently over 2000 apps for twitter including one that allows an unborn baby to twitter when it kicks or a plant to twitter when it needs water.
• Summize was a company that built a Twitter search engine. Williams liked the search engine so much that they bought the company.
• Some people in Atlanta used Twitter to find gas when it was scarce.
• People have raised tens of thousands of dollars for people in crisis over Twitter in a matter of days.
• Don't know what will happen next with Twitter, but when you give people easier ways to share information - more good things will happen.

Would you believe that at the end of his talk, the MC of TED searched Twitter to find about 50 tweets about Evans' talk.

Here is a man who is changing the world with his imagination. He invented Blogger as well.

BTW, if you aren't watching/listening to TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Talks, you are missing an opportunity to listen to the greatest minds in the world.

Follow Dr. Z on Twitter at http://twitter.com/zeitz

Coveritlive in the Classroom

I am going to be presenting lectures today about Media Evaluation in our Educational Technology and Design here at the University of Northern Iowa. We are looking for new ways to use laptops/smart phones to make the class more interactive so we are going to incorporate Coveritlive.com so that the students will be able to discuss the materials in a back channel while I am speaking.

I created an account and am embedding the Coveritlive window here in my blog. I will have another person in the back of the lecture hall moderating the discussion while I am speaking.

You can follow along at 6:00 pm CST. We will be talking about Media Evaluation. I would love to have your input.