Definitions Copyright and Distance Education

• Photographs and Digital Images The reproduction of photographs, illustrations, graphic designs, and other still images for use in a distance education course presents a perplexing copyright dilemma because intellectual property may be involved at several levels.
• Public Domain Any work in the public domain may be used freely in a distance education course. Works may enter the public domain several ways, most often simply through expiration of copyright protection.
• Videotapes and other Audiovisual Media works that consist of a series of related images which are intrinsically intended to be shown by the use of machines or devices such as projectors, viewers, or electronic equipment into courses transmitted to remote sites via distance education delivery systems, including both video- and Internet-based distribution.
• Section 110 of the copyright law permits the performance or display of a work during the face-to-face teaching activities of a nonprofit educational institution, in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction, with a lawfully made or acquired copy (if applicable). This has become known as the “face-to-face teaching exemption”.
• Fair Use of a copyrighted work . . . for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement.
• Copyright Myths

1. Myth 1. A work has to be published and registered with the U.S. Copyright Office to receive copyright protection. Any work, published or unpublished, meeting the criteria specified in the copyright law receives protection as soon as it is fixed in a tangible medium of expression.
2. Myth 2. If it does not have a copyright notice, it is public domain. As of March 1, 1989, when the United States adopted the Berne Convention international copyright treaty, a work is no longer required to include a copyright notice in order to receive protection.
3. Myth 3. Anything on the Internet is public domain. Nothing could be further from the truth. Original works of authorship placed on the Internet are entitled to protection just like any other works meeting the law’s criteria.
4. Myth 4. A work copyrighted in another country is public domain in the United States. This myth seems to arise when instructors want to use videotapes or publications from another nation in a U.S. distance education course.
5. Myth 5. The doctrine of “fair use” means that copyrighted materials can be used in an educational setting without permission. As a blanket statement, this is perhaps the biggest myth of all.
6. Myth 6. Any copyrighted materials can be digitized and placed on a course Web site without permission, as long as the site is password protected. Recent legislation has expanded the scope of materials that may be digitized and placed on a password-protected course Web site, but fair use criteria still apply.

• Intellectual Property The matter of intellectual property (IP) rights is currently one of the hot buttons in distance education, particularly among faculty unions.
• Digital Millennium Copyright Act has been the most comprehensive revision of the 1976 copyright law to date, with far-reaching implications for distance educators. The Act was intended to bring the United States into compliance with two treaties agreed upon by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 1996. The DMCA specifies that if a copyright infringement is found on a Web site maintained by a service provider, the rights holder may request that the service provider “take down” or block access to the infringing material and escape institutional liability for the infringement.