Copyright Alliance Proposes Wiki to Help Professors Get Permissions for Classroom Use
From the Chronicle - http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2599
Washington — So a professor wants to show Monty Python and the Holy Grail to her class on British humor, and she wants to check with the film studio to get permission. How would she do that? As it stands, the semester could be over by the time the professor even finds the right person to ask.
A nonprofit group called the Copyright Alliance, whose members include associations for the motion-picture and recording industries, announced today that it would like to help broker such requests. The idea, described briefly at an academic symposium held by the group on Monday in Washington, is to create a Web site where professors could post questions like the the one above and get answers from an industry official. The online resource would take the form of a wiki, a communal Web site that allows visitors to easily post new comments and track the changes that have been made.
Patrick Ross, executive director of the Copyright Alliance, said in an interview after the symposium that he had been talking with alliance members from the content industry who were ready to proceed, assuming that colleges want such a system.
“We wanted to know what the temperature would be like in the academic community and felt that this event would be a way to take that temperature,” he said. “I think based on the conversations I’ve had and what I’ve heard on the panels, there’s cautious optimism.”
He said entertainment-industry officials favored setting up such a wiki in hopes that it would answer complaints from professors that industry representatives did not respond quickly enough to requests for educational use of their films and songs.
“They don’t mean to be uncooperative, it’s just that their businesses are not set up to be performing this service,” said Mr. Ross. He said that if another professor looked at the wiki and saw that a particular movie studio generally granted permission for classroom use, he could be assured that he could also use a film from that studio without getting specific permission. “They could go to their general counsel and say this is pretty comparable,” said Mr. Ross.
Patricia Aufderheide, a professor at American University, said in an interview after the event that such a wiki could do more harm than good.
“I’m worried about further copyright misinformation,” she said, noting that many times presentation of movie clips in classrooms falls under fair use, so that no permission is required.
She also disagreed with Mr. Ross over how useful the wiki would be as a source of guidance. “Having NBC saying I won’t sue you if you do this really won’t help the next guy because the situation will be different,” she said.
Mr. Ross said he planned to meet with key university officials working on copyright issues to see whether such concerns could be overcome.
“There’s going to have to be trust won on both sides, I think, for this to succeed,” he said. —Jeffrey R. Young
1 comment:
Keep in mind that the example given by the reporter isn't necessarily relevant in this debate. This hypothetical wiki would only respond to direct requests from professors; somebody practicing legal use wouldn't ask, and wouldn't be a part of this.
The proposal was tossed out for consideration at a half-day symposium focused on reaching consensus on difficult problems affecting both copyright owners and academia. We had a wide range of panelists, and the consensus among all, including those more known for championing fair use than copyright enforcement, was that it was productive and should be repeated.
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