In my high school sex ed class, we had an assignment in which we had to make an advertisement (on paper) for condom use. Of course this assignment allowed for a ton of creativity. What I chose to do, however, was use the Nike slogan, with a bit of a twist. So, my advertisement read: “Just Do It…but with a condom.” In addition to that I had drawn the Nike swoosh and some sports equipments and condoms. Looking back at this now it seems as if I could have been engaging in copyright infringement, as I “stole” Nike’s slogan. However, because this was for educational purposes does that make my actions okay? And if this wasn’t okay, why did my teacher not inform me of this?
I think this could almost fall under parody as well. It is tough to say if you would have gotten in trouble. When I look back on things that happened in high school I feel like I unknowingly engaged in copyright infringement. I feel like because this topic is so complex it is easy for this to happen.
It is interesting to think that your teacher did not inform your class on how things like your project could be considered copyright infringement. I did a lot of different project like this that my teachers never even mentioned copyright stuff. I think because our projects were not really being seen by anyone but our class and our teachers. It was not really that important for teachers to go over all the different copyright issues.
I have definitly been given assignments targeted specifically at rewriting famous slogans. Does this fall under fair use for educational or parody clause?