So here’s what I’m reading and here’s how I came to be reading it and here’s the deal:
I don’t know why I never thought of this before, but about a month ago I started bringing my ipod speaker to class every day. I play it for my first period repeating freshmen everyday for my students to do their writing to. If the music (classical or jazz- never vocals) is playing, they’re writing. I started moving this into my AP classes though for some group work. The rule is on the board:
If anybody can’t hear the music, you’re being too loud.
So it’s been a huge success. I sometimes put on music in the computer lab, etc., but never when doing group work.
In any event, last week I put on the complete symphonic recording of Les Misérables. (My AP students are okay with vocals) It’s three hours long; I have three AP classes in a row. I heard the whole thing in a day, and even though it was just in the background, I was amazed at how completely the album tells the enitre story. And I don’t care that Hugo purists find it too condensed and that music purists think it’s too pop. It’s a piece of art- both as musical & as novel- that’s important to me.
A student, let’s call him Christian, knew I loved the show & was asking him about it. I loaned him an abridged copy. He is one of the hardest thinkers and workers I have, but struggles because he’s a Spanish speaker & struggles with English.
I decided that I’d burn him the album- and here’s where it gets ethically questionable- and also a transcription of the libretto. I put the libretto into Word, cleaned up some formatting, and added some little footnotes and context. I put it together in a binder with a couple of Hugo quotes (and a nifty reproduction of his signature), and the above image on the photo. The three burnt discs were in the pockets. I also gave him that motherhumper of a paperback unabridged copy. It will be hell for him to get through, but believe me, he will. He’ll listen to the album/ read the libretto this weekend, and then have a framework to understand the novel- which he wouldn’t be able to do on his own. Now, of course, the ethical question that this begs is one of:
©opyright!
Yes, there it is. That nasty little © symbol. Not nasty. Important. But still kind of nasty. I don’t think (and since I’m putting this into the blogosphere, I certainly hopenot) that Cameron Mackintosh, Alain Boublil, or Claude Shoenberg are going to come & take Christians transcribed libretto from him, but, legally they could.
But the copy wasn’t for profit. It was for education. It was for assisting in education. There’s no way he could understand this classic on his own- even if it was in Spanish. The musical helps. The transcript of the musical helps. And now he is going to be able to enjoy this fundamental piece of Western Culture.
So, What do we as educators, as people, consider “off limits” for assisting somebody in the understanding of a work, of anything? I’d actually love some responses to this question, especially from teachers.
The irony of this very specific situation is, of course, that the text in question is Les Misérables. One of the central themes of the novel is the conflict between the letter of the law & the spirit of the law. Right here, in this case, there’s no question that the letter of the law is being… bent… by giving Christian the work. However, Victor Hugo’s assertion with the novel is that, despite the government, ALL PEOPLE SHOULD BE EMPOWERED TO LEARN AND READ.
Final thought: I can’t put the diacritic into the title of the post, only the main text. Bummer.
Filed under: Advanced Placement (English Lang, mostly), Drama, Education, GHP, Metablog Posts, Movies/Media/TV, Novels, Poetry/Lyrics/Epics | Tagged: AP Lang, AP Language, Boublil, Broadway, Cameron Mackintosh, Copyright, diacritics, Education, Ethics, GHP, Hugo, Les Miserables, Literacy, Musicals, Opera, Pop, Pop Opera, Schoenberg
Isn’t copyright infringement O.K. if it’s for educational purposes? Or maybe there’s an exception to that exception…
Copyright infringement like this is okay as long as you openly acknowledge that you are not the holder of the copyright, that this is strictly for non-commercial, educational purposes, and that the discs that you gave him are not ever going to be used for public performance (and that he will not copy them).
Sorry guys, “educational use” is a limited fair-use situation. You can use parts of copyrighted works (which of course, Hugo’s novel is not, although the translation probably is), but not complete, and only in a classroom setting within a prescribed timeframe.
In this case, Schonberg/Boublil would not come after Christian, they’d come after Jobie. He’s the one who has defrauded them of income by illegally copying their work and giving it away, however nobly.
I always had this issue with people asking whether they had to pay royalties if they performed a play “in an educational setting.” If you’re performing the play, even for a school, even not charging admission, then you owe the playwright the royalties.
Some lawyers would even say that Jobie’s playing the entire show in class was a violation of the copyright owner’s rights. (It helps to use the phrase “copyright owner” so that you don’t forget what we’re really talking about here: the creator of an original work’s vested interests.)
That’s the law. I’ve always said, however, that as I stood before the Supreme Court defending myself for doing just what Jobie has done, my defense would be that I was in fact increasing the artist’s income by creating a consumer for his work that was not there before, nor was likely to have been were it not for my intervention.
Whether that would have prevented Scalia from feasting on my entrails, I have no idea. But that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.
Crap. I didn’t close an -em- tag after “increasing.” Jobie, edit that for me, please.
(That’s a , only without the pluses.
Well, you can’t even see what I typed because the blog thinks the angle brackets are a tag. So: less-than / em greater-than, without spaces. Blarrggh!