BBC - Radio 4 - Arts and Drama - Front Row
RADIO 4’s ‘Front Row’ discuss the landmark 1984 ruling that allowed US viewers to tape television programmes. Some interesting parallels with today’s conflict between internet technology and the law?

LACA: Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance - The Copyright Directive - implementation in the UK

Cilip have put together some guidelines on the changes to UK Copyright Law introduced on 31st October 2003.

Wired News: Copyright Doesn’t Cover This Site links to a University of Maine site which takes a contrasting line to that of most institutions on copyright and plaigerism.

Share Alike for UK Education

Jisc are moving to create a licence based on Creative Commons for education resources in Britain, called ‘Share-alike’. This is undoubtedly a development we need follow, and, almost certainly, adopt. At present the licence is in development, but it will be available soon on JISC’s website.

Interesting implications for copyright on camus?

Two students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a system for sharing music on campus that they say can avoid copyright battles. [New York Times: Education]

When we were talking about Athens authentication in Glasgow we also talked about the Shibboleth Project

Shibboleth, a project of Internet2/MACE, is developing architectures, policy structures, practical technologies, and an open source implementation to support inter-institutional sharing of web resources subject to access controls. In addition, Shibboleth will develop a policy framework that will allow inter-operation within the higher education community. Key concepts within Shibboleth include….

We still think we must appraise ourselves of this. Is it a way to approach certain copyright issues and problems?

Many thanks to Phillip Marzluf who drew Anne’s attention to The TEACH Act. This bit has special interest.

Exclusions from coverage:
Not everyone, nor every work, is covered. Section 110(2) only applies to accredited nonprofit educational institutions. The rights granted do not extend to the use of works primarily produced or marketed for in-class use in the digital distance education market; works the instructor knows or has reason to believe were not lawfully made or acquired; or textbooks, coursepacks and other materials typically purchased by students individually.

This last exclusion results from the definition of “mediated instructional activities,” a key concept within the expanded Section 110(2) meant to limit it to the kinds of materials an instructor would actually incorporate into a class-time lecture. In other words, the TEACH Act covers works an instructor would show or play during class such as movie or music clips, images of artworks in an art history class, or a poetry reading. It does not cover materials an instructor may want students to study, read, listen to or watch on their own time outside of class. Instructors will have to rely on other rights they may have to post those materials, such as the fair use statute.

From the University of Texassummary

Home Page JISC Legal Information Service

A very useful JISC site that provides an overview of the laws affecting information technology. The link was passed on to me by Martin Jones, a senior lecturer in the Law department. I met Martin at my induction last week, and he’s interested in staying in touch with us, as one of his prinicipal duties will be to set up a distance learning course.