Week 1.1 Copyright Scenario

Photo by Kristina Alexanderson licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

SCENARIO  – A primary class is completing an English unit based on “The Twits” by Roald Dahl. The teacher embeds audio book chapters of the book from YouTube for students to access through an Ed Studio on the Learning Place.  The purpose is to provide access for students who have missed reading the text in class, benefit from repeated readings and/or are unable to read the text independently. What are the copyright implications of this?

EXPLORATION OF OPTIONS

Linking/Embedding

It may be permissible for the teacher to link to the audio book chapters as linking is not considered a copyright activity. The teacher would be able to stream the audio book for viewing by students for educational purposes under section 28 of the copyright act.

 However, the copy available on YouTube is most likely an infringing copy of a commercially available audio book. Therefore it may not be covered under section 28.  Smartcopying’s “ Using YouTube” advise also warns against streaming content that is “ likely to be an infringing copy” .

Teacher created version

The teacher would not be able to record themselves reading the entire book as that would be making a copy. An audiobook version of “The Twits” is readily available at a commercial price so this is not permissible under copyright. A similar scenario is explored on the Smartcopying website.

Purchasing a commercially available copy and uploading to the EdStudio

The teacher may purchase a commercial copy of the audio book. Under Education Licence B: Statutory Text and Artistic Licence they could copy and communicate one chapter of the audiobook at a time. Previous chapters would need to be deleted from the EdStudio (along with any other digital copies made by the teacher). Single chapters could be uploaded to the EdStudio as this is a password protected site i.e. only available to students and staff for educational purposes. The material would need to be accompanied by a Part VB Notice ( EUS).

The teacher may be able to copy and upload the entire audio book for access by students with disabilities (only) under PART VB Intellectual Disability Licence.

Under Copyright Exceptions Educational Exceptions ii, schools are able to “communicate all works and audio visual material to classrooms to enable classroom performance using new technologies”. An example included states that teachers can “use virtual classrooms for distance education to show copyright materials to external students.”  My understanding of this exception is that the material should only be communicated for the purpose of showing it “in class” and should be deleted ASAP after this.

 As the teacher is intending to use the audio book over the course of the unit and wishes to provide access to students asynchronously over a period of time, I am unsure that this exception applies. There is also the problem of making a copy in order to upload the audio book. This would probably be covered under Education Licence B: Statutory Text and Artistic Licence and this would limit copying to one chapter (as mentioned above).

Classroom access to commercial copy

In this case it may be easier for the teacher to provide students with access the audio book at school from a CD or MP3 player. This would not involve making a copy of the audio book and is permissible under section 28 of the copyright act.

QUESTIONS

If there were bandwidth issues and the content could not be reliably delivered via a link, could the teacher download the You Tube content and make it available via a file in the Studio ?   

No. While the Copyright act may permit a copy to be made, making a copy would breach YouTube’s terms of use.