Copyright for Educators, Cycle 2 - Mar 2010

I have read the course materials as much as I can up to this point. One thing I discovered that seemed significant to the first question is that public domain materials can be used without concern regarding copyright as long as you are not copying the format or presentation of the source materials.

anele Dube is a science teacher at a high school. She has created an interactive science unit on DVD for her school students using the following resources:

* Extracts from Charles Darwin's personal diaries and notebooks
* Images of Darwin etc from http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/interactive/2009/feb/12/charles-darwin
* Extracts from Darwin's book "the Origin of the Species"
* Genetic Code Chart from http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/psa.gc.pdf
* A clip from the BBC TV science documentary series “Life" with David Attenborough she taped from television.
* Clips from the film " Creation”
* Her own original drawings and photographs of animals, trees and fauna
* Her own original quizzes, research, teaching notes and text about Darwin.

She plans to make 20 DVD copies of the resource to give to her students to use as part of the class group science project. She recently showed the resource at a Science Teacher conference. After the conference she was approached by an educational publisher who would like to publish and reproduce the resource.

Questions (to be answered by each group)

1. Identify the types of copyright works or other subject in the material she wants to use.
2. Identify the copyright owner for each category of work or other subject matter.
3. Identify which of the above works or other subject matter are still in copyright.
4. Is Zanele Dube's resource protected by copyright?
5. Does the Publisher need permission to reproduce the resource and/or any of the above included in the resource ?

Hi Cathy,

Seems we may be on our own (at least for now).

I have been working on assignment 1. Answering questions and reading. This is what I have come up with so far:

Charles Darwin personal diaries, notebooks,book are all public domain.
Images of Darwin from the guardian are copyrighted ©2010.
Genetic Code Chart is copyrighted by ENSI and can be used for non-commercial uses if cited.
Zanele's original art and teaching literature are copyrighted but she may use and give permission to others.
I have not looked up the clips from the documentary and "Creation" yet as far as copyrights. I question how long a 'clip' is and how that will affect copyrights. I am still researching this.

The Publisher would need to get permission from all the sources except Public Domain to reproduce any of the resources.

What have you come up with so far? Which one of us should be the group leader for this week?

Amy

Hi Charity,

The emails are confusing at first. Since yesterday was the first official day you aren't that late!

Nice to meet you.

That is true. I was going by the fact that it reads, "personal diaries and notebooks" and "from Darwin's book". If this is true then Zanele is using public domain work. If she is taking it from a newer version (which may be easier to come by) then there would be copyright issues.

I have written up a short word document with answers to the questions for this week. Does anyone have anything? Should I just submit what I have? Since the assignment is due today I may do just that.

Hopefully no one takes this post harshly. I realize this is a confusing platform to start with and I am sure we will all get into a rhythm soon. I am going to post what I wrote on our wiki (see post above) that way we can all edit it before submitting it tonight.