Copyright

I mentioned in the caucus meeting today that I put together a document promoting the IP-themed sessions at the conference this year, as John Logie has done in the past, but that I wasn't passing it out because it was 22 pages long. Instead, I've uploaded it here so that you can, hopefully, check it out in time to attend some of these:

http://ccccip.org/files/CCCCsessionsIP.pdf

http://ccccip.org/files/CCCCsessionsIP.odt

I am pleased to announce the publication of the third CCCC-IP Annual. Below I have posted the table of contents and the introduction. The html version of the collection isn't live yet, but I have attached PDF and .odt versions of the file to this post. They are available for download here:

http://ccccip.org/files/TopIP2007Collection_0.odt

http://ccccip.org/files/TopIP2007Collection_0.pdf

Introduction

Clancy Ratliff, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

McLean Students File Suit Against Turnitin.com: Useful Tool or Instrument of Tyranny?

Traci Zimmerman (Pipkins), James Madison University

The Importance of Understanding and Utilizing Fair Use in Educational Contexts: A Study on Media Literacy and Copyright Confusion

Martine Courant Rife, Lansing Community College and Michigan State University

The National Institutes of Health Open Access Mandate: Public Access for Public Funding

Clancy Ratliff, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

"Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video"

Laurie Cubbison, Radford University

One Laptop Per Child Program Threatens Dominance of Intel and Microsoft

Kim Dian Gainer, Radford University

Bosch v Ball-Kell: Faculty May Have Lost Control Over Their Teaching Materials

Jeff Galin, Florida Atlantic University

Introduction

Clancy Ratliff, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Co-Chair, 2008 CCCC Intellectual Property Caucus

The year 2007 carried quite a few key developments for those who follow issues and debates related to copyright and intellectual property. For the third year running, then, the CCCC Intellectual Property Committee is pleased to publish this annual report in the service of our first goal, to “keep the CCCC and NCTE memberships informed about intellectual property developments, through reports in the CCCC newsletter and in other NCTE and CCCC forums.”

In assuming the editorship of this year's collection, I have chosen to implement two changes which I believe embody the values of the Caucus and the IP Committee. First, I have licensed the collection under a Creative Commons license. This license allows readers to use the collection beyond the boundaries of fair use, provided the collection is not used for commercial purposes, the authors of the articles are credited, and no derivative works are made. One exception to the condition regarding derivative works concerns modifications for purposes of accessibility. Readers can, for example, create an audio recording of the collection or increase and change the font for the visually impaired. The main purpose for the Creative Commons license is to enable cross-publishing of the collection in a variety of online publication venues. I also hope that readers find the collection useful for the classroom. This collection may be reprinted in course packs or archived on course web sites under the terms of the Creative Commons license.

The second change I have made is to make the collection available in Open Document Format. In the past, the collection has been published in html and pdf format, as it is this year, but I am also publishing it as an .odt file, which can be opened in at least two open source word processing programs: OpenOffice and NeoOffice. I am uploading the file in .odt format as a public acknowledgment of the IP Caucus's growing awareness of software as intellectual work and open source software as intellectual work that is free and open for all to use and build upon.

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School releases a white paper: “The Digital Learning Challenge: Obstacles to Educational Uses of Copyrighted Material in the Digital Age.”

The paper can be downloaded without charge at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/publications

The paper explores whether innovative educational uses of technology, especially for teaching, are hampered by current copyright law. The paper found that copyright law along with business and institutional structures shaped by the law are major obstacles to “realizing the potential of digital technology in education.”

As reported in the L.A. Times (reg. required) and elsewhere, "officials with the Los Angeles Boy Scouts and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) on Friday unveiled the Respect Copyrights Activity Patch — emblazoned with a large circle C copyright sign along with a film reel and musical notes."

Boy scouts curriculum here (PDF).

Via Infocult, the kickoff of Academic Commons, which, as a combination discussion forum/quarterly journal, looks to be a very valuable resource. From the first edition page:

Academic Commons (http://www.academiccommons.org) offers a forum for investigating and defining the role that technology can play in liberal arts education. Sponsored by the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College (http://liberalarts.wabash.edu), Academic Commons publishes essays, reviews, interviews, showcases of innovative uses of technology, and vignettes that critically examine technology uses in the classroom. Academic Commons aims to share knowledge, develop collaborations, and evaluate and disseminate digital tools and innovative practices for teaching and learning with technology. We want this site to advance opportunities for collaborative design, open development, and rigorous peer critique of such resources.

Academic Commons also provides a forum for academic technology projects and groups (the Developer's Kit) and a link to a new learning object referatory (LoLa). Our library archives all materials we have published and also provides links to allied organizations, mailing lists, blogs, and journals through a Professional Development Center.

The first issue of the quarterly looks very interesting. The pieces that pique my interest the most are these:

Technology & the Pseudo-Intimacy of the Classroom: an interview with University of Illinois-Chicago's Jerry Graff

http://academiccommons.org/commons/interview/graff

Graff's interest in "teaching the conflicts" as a way of rescuing higher education from itself has recently been replaced by a profound worry that higher ed is becoming increasingly irrelevant to American culture. We checked in to see what role Graff thinks technology might play in these unsettling times.

Copyright 101 by Richard Lanham, UCLA

http://academiccommons.org/commons/essay/lanham-copyright-101

The pervasiveness of digital media has so altered the nature of authorship and ownership that questions of intellectual property have become matters of core concern for our students and our contemporary culture. Lanham argues that these issues require an academic response, and that a basic course in copyright -- "Copyright 101" -- represents a first step in this process.

Cross-posted to Kairosnews and CultureCat.

From today's Chronicle of Higher Ed.:

Industry Executives and Copyright Activists Debate File Sharing at a Cornell U. Colloquium By BROCK READ Wednesday, April 20, 2005

When a who's who of entertainment-industry executives and digital-rights activists descended on Cornell University for a colloquium on downloading, they found Cornell's students more than eager to debate the past, present, and future of music and movie piracy.

The colloquium, "The Downloading Debate Strikes Back," pitted some of the chief architects of the entertainment industry's antipiracy campaign against two of the industry's most vocal opponents.

In his post at Kairosnews, Matt Barton explains how he has been trying to persuade Elsevier to let him put up online a CC-licensed copy of an article that he wrote which has been accepted into Computers and Composition. No surprise, Elsevier is balking:

I finally heard back from Elsevier regarding my question about CC. Here is their response:

The Creative Commons licence you have sent is unfortunately not acceptable to Elsevier mainly due to the fact it does not give Elsevier the rights it needs and makes no warranty which is something that we must have before we can publish.

They have, however, offered me an alternative licensing agreement. The main difference is that I get to retain the copyright to the article. I'm not sure about the realities of the legal situation, but I'm curious if this means I'll be able to release the article under CC at some point in the future. I've pasted the agreement below. Please read it and respond quickly, because I need to let them know something very soon. The point that worries me most is 2.2, which says the publisher does not recognize my right to post the document to a website or distribute it in any "systematic" way, which seems like a damnably vague term to me. However, I'm thinking that since they've let me retain the copyright, does it matter that the publisher doesn't recognize that right?? Boy, am I confused.

Be sure to check out his post on Kairosnews with the licensing contract agreement offered by Elsevier.