Copyright is an important protection for writers who depend on royalties for their living. I edit and publish an online journal of commentary on issues in education, The Irascible Professor. Approximately two-thirds of the material published in The Irascible Professor is supplied by guest commentators who are paid, albeit modestly, for their efforts.
As part of my agreement with these individuals, they retain copyright to the content of their commentaries while I retain the right to maintain the articles online indefinitely. Copyright ownership is clearly indicated and asserted with every article.
Nevertheless, Susan Ohanian and others occasionally have reposted entire commentaries on their own sites without requesting permission to do so either from me or from the copyright holders in the case of guest commentaries. When these copyright violations come to my attention, I vigorously defend the copyright. Fair use does not allow one to republish copyrighted material for the general public, only for personal use.
I have no objection to the publication of small excerpts, that is fair use, or to the publication of links to the articles on my own web site. However, general republication of copyrighted materials without permission simply is another form of theft. Basically, those who republish the work without permission are stealing from the original authors.
If you want to repost copyrighted material, you have both a legal and moral obligation to obtain permission from the copyright holder.
-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu on behalf of Richard Hake
Sent: Tue 3/7/2006 5:32 PM
To: ITFORUM@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Cc: AERA-L@ASU.EDU; STLHE-L@LISTSERV.UNB.CA; phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu; math-learn@yahoogroups.com; PHYSLRNR@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU; AERA-J@ASU.EDU; POD@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Symposium on Copyright at a Crossroads
In response to my post "Re: Symposium on Copyright at a Crossroads,"
[Hake (2006a)], Terri Buckner (2006) wrote [bracketed by lines
"BBBBBBB. . . "]
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
I'm sad to see there has been no discussion around the battle lines drawn
between [Richard Hake] and [ITFORUM moderator] Bev Ferrell. While I
have great respect for all the energy and expertise Bev has put into
ITFORUM, I disagree with her interpretation of fair use. Furthermore,
I believe that a forum of instructional designers and technologists
should be willing to strike out against commercially-based
restrictions like forbidding the copying of clearly referenced
materials in an international forum. From what I can tell, the
materials [Richard Hake] copied are freely available to anyone who
wants to sign up for the NY Times online service. So re-copying the
article is taking nothing away from the NY Times in terms of its
'intellectual property'other than bypassing some advertising that no
one looks at anyway.
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
Bravo Terri Buckner !!
In my aforementioned post [Hake (2006a)] I wrote:
"I fear that Bev Ferrell's (2006) interpretation of copyright law,
**were it correct**, would shut down the efforts of Susan Ohanian,
Jerry Becker, myself, and many discussion list subscribers to
communicate copyrighted material to "those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving the included information for research and
educational purposes." See, e.g., Susan Ohanian's (2006) fair use
notice [featuring <http://tinyurl.com/3z3r6>].
Why is it that Susan Ohanian, Jerry Becker, myself, and hundreds of
other discussion-list posters of copyrighted are, as far as I know,
not in jail and have not even been threatened with law suits? Ditto
for the hundreds of organizations that sponsor the discussion lists
[with the apparent exception of TRDEV-L
<http://lists.psu.edu/archives/trdev-l.html>].
Among possible reasons are:
1. Newspapers and magazines benefit from the free advertising they
receive from discussion-list posters of their copyrighted material.
2. The authors of material that's copyrighted benefit from the
attention and prestige they receive when their articles are more
widely disseminated to the academic and education communities.
3. Newspapers and magazines would receive some bad publicity if they
brought suit against Universities or professional groups that sponsor
discussion lists devoted to the free exchange and discussion of
information and ideas.
4. It would be almost impossible for publishers to quell, by means of
lawsuits, the posting of their copyrighted material on the internet.
REFERENCES [Tiny URL's courtesy <http://tinyurl.com/create.php>]
Buckner, T. 2006. "Re: Symposium on Copyright at a Crossroads (was
Proof of Learning at College)," ITFORUM post of 6 Mar 2006
09:43:11-0500; online at <http://tinyurl.com/mqpwv>.
Ferrell, B. 2006. "Re: ITForum: Proof of Learning at College,"
ITFORUM post of 28 Feb 2006 16:29:19-0600; online at
<http://tinyurl.com/ogmb7>. A response to Hake (2006b).
Hake, R.R. 2006a. "Re: Symposium on Copyright at a Crossroads (was
Proof of Learning at College)," online at <http://tinyurl.com/z9sd4>.
Post of 2 Mar 2006 12:13:57-0800 to AERA-L, ITFORUM, Math-Learn, & PhysLrnR.
Hake, R.R. 2006b. "Proof of Learning at College," online at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0602&L=pod&O=D&P=21791>.
Post of 27/28 Feb 2006 to AERA-L, AERA-J, ITFORUM, Phys-L, PhysLrnR,
POD, and STLHE-L. Evidently DELETED from the ITFORUM archives by
ITFORUM moderator Bev Ferrell.