eTech and Copyright

Thanks to my good friend, John, for pointing out this text on page 11 of the eTech Ohio 2008 conference guide book.

Here we have another attempt at making copyright law more than it is.  Copyright law in this country is defined by the United States government and there are clear limitations on any copyright owner’s exclusive rights.  It’s called Fair Use and it not only applies to “purely educational” use, but also:

for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research

So I may use an except of a copyright protected work without permission (as I have with the electronically scanned insert above) to make comments (as I am now) about that copyright protected work.

A copyright owner cannot redefine copyright law by stating extra limitations in a book, audio or video recording.  Here is a great story chronicling the efforts of the NFL to takedown a video posted by Wendy Seltzer.  Wendy recorded the disclaimer by the NFL where they state:

This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience, and any other use of this telecast or of any pictures, descriptions or accounts of the game without the NFL’s consent is prohibited

Wendy then posted the video on YouTube so she could have a discussion with her online class (fair use – teaching).  The NFL tried to have the video taken offline, but failed to do so.

More than anything else, I wish the copyright notice in eTech’s material could promote something like CreativeCommons.  This would make it much easier for educators to use the work without worrying about breaking the law (I am uncertain of the exact meaning of “purely educational purposes”) and commercial use could be restricted with a CC-noncommercial license.