Most of us are familiar with copyright issues in reproducing documents and other materials for learner support, however the electronic environment attracts a host of potential 'minefields' in the area of copyright and intellectual property.
At its simplest level, electronic materials are subject to the same copyright provisions as any 'hardcopy' material we may wish to use. The ease of downloading from the Internet does NOT obviate the legal restrictions. This is the single greatest area for concern, that users consider the material to be FREELY available. It may be free of charge to access, but not necessarily to reuse. As with other intellectual property, text, images and sounds have been authored, and therefore require permission before they may be reused.
You may want to start by refreshing your memory on copyright law. There are resources below to guide you.
There are many laws which may affect our presence online are, some of these are:
- The Data Protection Act
- The Defamation Act
- The Freedom of Information Act
- The Criminal Justice Act 1994
There are other issues, which have yet to be resolved in law, for example so-called 'Deep Linking'. This term refers a hyperlink you may make available which allows the user to bypass the home page of the 'target' web site, going directly to a 'deeper' page. There have been several high-profile cases challenging this practice, without a definitive answer yet being given. For more information a search of the web using the term "deep linking" or "deep links" will provide hours of reading!
One consideration to bear in mind; email provides a relatively quick, cheap, and easy method of contacting an author to obtain permission to use his/her material.
Practice Related Activity
Examine any electronic materials you have produced, or are producing, and make a note of any legal implications which might be present, and how you would address them.
Resources
The Copyright Licensing Agency: http://www.cla.co.uk/
JISC Briefing Paper on copyright: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=mle_briefings_19
JISC paper on Cybercrime: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/lis_cybercrime.pdf
Copyright and e-learning at Sheffield Hallam: http://e-learning.shu.ac.uk/blackboard/copyright_vle.html
Internet Law & Policy Forum: http://www.ilpf.org/
Internet Law Library: http://www.lawguru.com/ilawlib/
The Internet Law Journal: http://www.tilj.com/
The Internet Law Web: http://www.internetlawweb.com/
Latest Developments on Internet Law (Search for Internet Law and Data protection (Adobe Documents)): http://www.jisc.ac.uk/
Cyber-Rights: http://www.cyber-rights.org/
Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC): http://www.epic.org/
