New (and not so new) resources

I am delighted to be able to link to a whole new group of resource for understanding and teaching others about copyright law and user rights.  Since most of these resources are video, they offer a nice supplement to the text resources I have listed here and here.

First, because it is the most general, is this new web site called “Teaching Copyright” from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  This is a full-scale online curriculum designed to teach students about copyright,  It is intentionally offered to counter some of the educational efforts of the music and movie industries, which tend to focus heavily on what is not allow and try to avoid mentioning fair use or other exceptions that benefit users and support new creativity.

Second is what I like to call the most boring seven minutes on YouTube.  I realize that there is great competition for that honor, but this video in which I discuss the copyright and privacy issues involved in recording campus lectures and classes for Internet distribution surely has a claim.  It was made at the request of the Duke Office of News and Communications, and I have reason to hope it is helpful, even if it is not exciting.  If viewers are seeking entertainment after listening to me drone through the rights issues they need to consider, it is worth while looking around at the other videos on the Duke Libraries YouTube channel; many are much more exciting.

Next is this video from JISC on Intellectual Property Rights in Web 2.0 world.  It is a cute, colorful and nicely detailed discussion of rights and permissions issues that need to be considered as one creates new content for the web, and it points to an “online diagnostic tool” that will walk one through the issues in greater detail.  One warning, however, is that because this video and diagnostic tool are created in reference to UK law, where there is no fair use provision, their suggestions for when permission is needed must be reconsidered by US citizen in the light of our fair use provision.  Nevertheless, this is a helpful way of evaluating the issues and the various strands of rights that have to be considered, even if the conclusions will seem too strict to Americans.

The antidote to JISC’s lack of reference to fair use is this final video from the Center for Social Media on Fair Use and Online Video.  The Center has been a great champion of fair use through its work to create best practices documents to guide filmmakes and teachers of media literacy.  Now this video, and the accompanying best practices that it refers to, make the process of figuring out how and when fair use applies to allow a use without permission from the rights holder both clearer and rather entertaining.  This, and all of the resources mentioned above, are additional tools for the ongoin effort to clarify copyright for our students, staff and faculty; it is nice to be able to point to such a array of different, and amusing, media