Coping with Copyright

IPR and Third-Party Copyright: the HumBox Perspective

Dr Erika Corradini Subject Centre for LLAS

University of Southampton

IPR and copyright in sharing educational resourcesUniversity of Southampton, 14 December 2009

• Does the law keep up with technological advances in education?

• Has the way in which people in education use content changed?

• Has the way in which users engage with content changed?

The wind of change!

What’s the difference?

• Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/

• Copyright

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy.htm

Resources and their owners

• Who owns what?– Copyright law protects the person who owns the creation/the

tangible product (not the idea!) etc.

– Licence: what owners let you do with their materials (less restrictive than copyright law)

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

• Who are the ‘owners’?– Institution (owns employees’ teaching resources)

– Employees (may have agreed differently with institution)

– Students (author/actors: check institution’s policy)

– Third parties

– Para-academic bodies/agencies

– …

CC licences: - Allow to use and repurpose content without asking for

permission- Encourage ‘openness’ and interaction between the

teaching and learning communities (and within them)- Encourage good practice

but- Need to be compatible with materials owned by third-

parties

It’s all about the community

Looking at resources:

• Does your resource contain materials produced by other people?

• If yes, do you hold permission to use those materials?

• Can CC licences co-exist with materials protected by copyright? How do they get along?

• How can risks of infringing copyright be monitored, managed and reduced?

http://humbox.eprints.org/167/

At what stage of the resource-creation process permission should be asked to use third-party materials?

What to do when permission has been given?

– Embed in metadata– Keep track of actions taken and details of permissions

given– Other?

Permissions

Monitor and manage risks

What if permission CANNOT be obtained?

• Try and reduce risks of infringing copyright

• Find (technical) ways around resource which pose problems

• Use of so-called ‘orphan works’ (with caution) http://www.ipo.gov.uk/pro-types/pro-copy/c-policy/c-policy-orphanworks.htm

Does your resource contain materials produced by third

parties?

Have you obtained permission?

Third-party materials licensed

to resource developers need to be attributed and may not be subject to CC

licences

Permissions can be obtained by the project’s IPR/copyright Team, on

provision of source details by the resource developer,

but is this model sustainable?

Students grant permission to use/make available their

materials by signing an agreement (depends on

institutional policy)

What if permission CANNOT be obtained?

Your resource is copyright clear

Find alternative copyright-clear material

Ask the IPR/copyright team for advice to work

problems around

What actions have you taken to assess and

reduce risks?

UPLOAD

NO YES

YES

NO

Permission is required from the copyright owner, UNLESS the material is:

• in the public domain;• a ‘fair dealing’ exception:

• Criticism and Review;• Non-commercial research and private study;• educational purposes within a university’s premises (in VLE or real teaching environs) etc.

Reducing risks1. Establish and acknowledge ownership and report details on resource e. g.

© Owner, publisher, year of publication, and all details that may be of help to find the original resource

2. Embed resource in a context (e. g. ppt and word documents, metadata description, handouts etc.) clearly indicating the purpose for which it is used, for example: criticism and review; not for profit playing of music; non-commercial use of resource

3. Use only ‘small’ portions of third-party materials

4. When in doubt about ownership try and link to external source

5. Monitor numbers of resource downloaders/viewers (when possible)

6. Consider having a view-only policy for resources containing third-party materials for which permission to repurpose was not obtained

7. Embed in your project a notice and take-down policy

8. Letter of apology (though this is unlikely to be a long term policy)

9. …

Some resources

• Intellectual Property Office

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/

• Web2Rights project

http://www.web2rights.org.uk/

• University of Southampton

http://www.calendar.soton.ac.uk/sectionIV/ipr.html

• JISClegal

http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/

http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/ManageContent/ViewDetail/tabid/243/ID/1150/OER--Legal-

Matters--Webcast--051109.aspx (Webcast-OER legal matters, 5 November 09)

• Jorum deposit tool

http://deposit.jorum.ac.uk/mod/resource/type/mrcuteput/uploader.php