Intellectual Property and Copy Rights (continued)
For instructors and learners, copyrights can be problematic and frustrating. What mainly concerns instructors and learners in the field of e-learning is literary work.
According to Copyright Act 1994 (as cited in intellectual property and teachers, n.d.) literary work is any work that is written, spoken or sung. Lecture materials including handouts are also protected under the category of intellectual property and teachers are allowed only to circulate materials that they have developed.
It is very imperative to understand that a copyrighted material or work can be used under certain circumstances. Permission is the most important aspect to be considered. Other conditions to be considered, public domain, legal exception and fair use. (Newsome, 1997).The latter, fair use, includes many other issues such as the purpose of use, nature of the work, size and extent of the work used and the factor of marketability. (Newsome, 1997).
What are the challenges then?
Carter (as cited in Newsome, 1997) believes that the rapid advancement of technology and easy accessibility to widely available electronic resources have emerged a number of issues and challenges. He also believes that the law regarding intellectual property and copyright, can be really confusing and even misleading and yet the technology easy-made processes such as copying, transferring and digitalization of information and images have contributed tremendously to violations of copyright related laws and issues.
Due to the above mentioned facts and some others, teachers often do not understand how much work they are entitled to copy or use and what type of work actually they are entitled to publish or circulate to their students.
Therefore, awareness of these vital issues is critical and fairly and responsibly use of available online materials are also imperative to ethical and professional teaching practice.