Electronic Resources in the Virtual Learning

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Copyright and licensing digital texts
Introduction
Knowledge of copyright, intellectual property rights and licensing issues
is of crucial importance when linking virtual learning environments
(VLEs) to digital library systems and resources. The responsibility for
advising academic and other support staff about the most appropriate,
and legal, use of electronic resources frequently falls to librarians. They
also often have to answer general queries about copyright. Librarians are
clearly not lawyers; however, as a librarian it is not uncommon to find
that what you know about copyright is an awful lot more than many of
your users will know!
This chapter is designed to be highly practical and answers many of the
questions that you might have yourself or are likely to be asked by your
users. First, there is an overview of copyright law in the UK, Australia
and the US, examining the main characteristics of the law and
highlighting major differences between the three countries. The chapter
also includes a guide to copyright and the electronic environment, advice
about using material from websites, linking to websites and also
licensing text for inclusion within the VLE. The chapter is brought right
up to date with information about new initiatives such as the ‘Creative
Commons’ movement and new research being funded in the UK and
Holland to explore copyright and the electronic environment
(JISC/SURF, 2004). The chapter goes on to examine the copyright
clearance and digitisation process that may need to be undertaken and
issues surrounding outsourcing the production. Again it is brought up to
date to include recent negotiations in the higher education sector in the
UK, to include digitisation within the scope of the Copyright Licensing
Agency (CLA) Higher Education Licence.
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Electronic Resources in the Virtual Learning Environment
A brief guide to copyright
This book is not a definitive guide to copyright for librarians, for there
are many good examples of these types of works already available.
However, in the context of the virtual learning environment, this chapter
briefly explains what copyright is and what type of resources it applies
to. Copyright laws around the world do vary, so examples of further
reading are given for the UK, Australia and the US. In the UK, works by
Cornish (2001), Norman (2004) and Pedley (2000) are excellent guides
written specifically for librarians and recent editions of such works have
appeared as changes in the law necessitate. In the US, the American
Library Association (ALA) have a large amount of copyright information
on their website and have also published guides for librarians, such as
those by Bruwelheid (1995), Johnston and Roark (1996) and Crews
(2000). There are also several US books that specifically examine
copyright in the digital environment, including Hoffman (2001) and
Harris (2002). A recent publication by the Australian Copyright Council
(2003) also examines the management of digital resources. For an
overview of international copyright, Goldstein (2001) has produced a
useful guide.