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Podium
New Copyright Law for Distance Education
Drs.
Donald G. and Elizabeth Perrin, Editors
The preeminence of education and open transfer of knowledge in any form is the cornerstone for development of a vibrant, evolving society. For innovators and learners within the knowledge universe, restriction to open free access is anathema. The concern with Copyright on a broad scale is not merely with copyright policies, but with copyright politics, privatization, and profiteering. Even the respected IEEE has responded to the marketing demands and now offers its collection of 300,000 articles for $35 for up to 25 articles per month. (25 articles per month will not sustain serious research!)
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was unduly restrictive in use of copyrighted resources for distance learning. The new Copyright Law provides greater access, but with certain restrictions that should be carefully reviewed.
On November 2, 2002, President Bush signed into law the "Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act," commonly known as the "TEACH Act. This law is a complete revision of Section 110(2) of the U.S. Copyright Act governing lawful use of existing copyrighted materials in distance education. The fundamental objective of this Law is to strike a balance between protecting copyrighted works and permitting distance educators to use excerpts of copyrighted materials in instruction.
Administrators, technology providers, librarians and instructors and should familiarize themselves with the benefits and requirements of this law. The law assigns certain responsibilities and restrictions to each of these four groups.
Kenneth Crews wrote a detailed interpretation of The Meaning and Importance of the TEACH Act for the American Library Association. Additional information is available from his Copyright Management website at Indiana University.
Dr. Crews explains:
“This is a detailed statute, with specific requirements and conditions, outlining the terms on which educators may clip pieces of text, images, sound, and other works and include them in ‘distance education.’ If a particular use does not fit these conditions, one may still consider whether the use is a ‘fair use,’ but the copyright analysis should now begin with an evaluation of Section 110(2) of the law, as revised by the TEACH Act.”
“If educators remain within the boundaries of the law, they may use certain copyrighted works without permission from, or payment of royalties to, the copyright owner-and without copyright infringement.”
“The new law offers many improvements over the previous
version of Section 110(2), but in order to enjoy its advantages, colleges,
universities, and other qualified educational institutions will need to meet the
law's rigorous requirements. … the law calls on each educational institution to
undertake numerous procedures and involve the active participation of many
individuals.
The new version of Section 110(2) addresses the expanded range of allowed works, expansion of receiving locations, storage of transmitted content, and digitizing of analog works. It addresses specific duties of institutional policy makers, technology officials, librarians and instructors.
Bookmark these websites to study the benefits and responsibilities inherent in this Law: