Drew+Mortensen


 * Your boss/principal asks you to create a distance education/learning course in either a business or education setting. When you begin to outline your course, you realize there will be copyright issues you will encounter. What sort of issues might you face? How will you deal with them? Will any problems need you to request a copyright? If so, what?; if not, why?

First, the course will be created in an online environment that is safe from outside eyes. Using a program like Blackboard or Moodle will provide such a housing. This is a great first step to preventing problems: Don't let anyone index your site. Minimizing the exposure of any content will help to mitigate the potential problems. I'm not advocating that anyone breaks the law or doesn't attempt to understand the law. I'm suggesting that a reasonable effort be made to minimize the significance of a problem should one arise.

If I'm concerned about potential copyright issues, I will not post/use anything in the course until I'm reasonable confident that we have permission to use the resource. The resource itself will help to determine my course of action. I may call a company or author and see information from the source as to our permission to utilize the resource. I may search the internet to see if the resource is widely available in other locations - helping me to decide whether or not to link to an outside source, or host the original myself. I've requested copyright requests from individuals in the past, and have never been turned down when I explain that credit would be given to the author/publisher.

Finally, if there is still some measure of trepidation, I will opt not to use the resource. Generally, there is nothing new under the sun - and with the amount of human made information increasing so rapidly, chances are that someone else has already posted that great idea somewhere else.

Of course there is always the option of buying the rights... but who has the money to do that!?**