[FC-discuss] creating a copyright How-To for professors whose slideshow presentations have unlicensed images

[Kevin Driscoll]

As much as it is valuable to reveal the richness of open materials,
it is very important to reassure to teachers and professors that they
are legally permitted to use images returned by Google Image Search in
their classrooms.

A related problem, of course, is that when these lectures go into open
courseware repositories, the fair use becomes trickier. Media studies
lectures are laregly not included in OpenCourseWare at MIT in part
because they are chock full of clips, images, and sounds that are
still within their copyright term.

That is a shame but the profs can't simply replace a clip from Fox
News with something else. I believe that the same fair use that
applies in the classroom applies in the repository.

Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with me yet.

If educators feel strongly that they have a right to use copyright
materials in their classes, they will be more likely to assert that
right when it comes to freely publishing their learning materials.

Kevin


On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 8:55 PM, Greg Grossmeier
<greg.grossmeier at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 24 Jan 2009, Gavin Baker wrote:
>
>> D Parker Phinney wrote:
>> > [...]  Beyond clearing lectures to be
>> > published online as part of OCW, freeing professors' lectures of
>> > copyright-infringing material (and squeezing in some free culture ideals
>> > as well) seems to be a good idea in general.
>>
>> Um -- they're using images for educational use, in a classroom,
>> sometimes transformatively or critically. If that's not fair use, I
>> don't know what is. Why is this a bad thing?
>
> Encouraging the use of Open Content in a lecture is never a bad idea.
> In fact, encouraging the _creation_ of open content for lectures by
> profs is never a bad idea.
>
> Data point: as a part of having his lecture be published by the
> OPEN:Michigan project a Physics prof has begun creating new CC:BY
> images instead of using the images from textbooks as he did before.
> That benefits us all.
>
> Also, aren't we about promoting Free Culture in universities?
> Encouraging profs to use Open Content seems like some great promotion
> :)
>
>
> greg
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