Online learning and accessibility
Copyright and IPR
Copyright, the right of an author, artist, and/ or publisher and so on to retain ownership of works and to produce or contract others to produce copies, is a complex issue in Higher Education.
Until 31st July 2006 Goldsmiths College, like most other UUK members are still subject to a blanket licence agreement with the CLA. After that date, Goldsmiths will be signing up to the new licence comes into effect, which incorporates changes that reflect the increased use of VLEs (Virtual Learning Environments, such as our own learn.gold) and allows digitisation (through scanning e.g.) and electronic storage of copyrighted material.
In the meantime, “the Higher Education Photocopying Licence Agreement does not extend to granting permission to digitise and store extracts of printed books, journals and magazines using a digital photocopier (or any other electronic capture or electronic storage device)”.
Copyright and IPR (intellectual property right) are relevant concerns not just in the area of how much we are allowed to use of copyrighted works within teaching hours, but about making copyrighted material available to our students beyond this time, e.g. through the VLE. With the new license, a new process will be a put in place to record and report digitisation and electronic storage. Relevant information on this will be posted here nearer the time.
Last, but not least, copyright and IPR also concern your own academic material, so it is well worth your while acquiring some knowledge in that field. The guide below provides some information about IPR issues.
You can contact us at celt@gold.ac.uk if you have any more particular queries and we will endeavour to clarify your issues.
There is Copyright handbook [pdf] you can consult in the meantime.
For general copyright information, contact m.nixon@gold.ac.uk, the Head of Library Services.