Copyright 4 Educators (AUS)

Key words: open licence, open access, open content, Creative Commons, GNU GPL, Attribution, Share Alike, Noncommercial

Bongani teaches at a community college. Students pay fees to attend the college, but the college also gets some funding from the government. Bongani is paid for her teaching (although not very well).
 
She wants to provide copies of some interesting resources she found marked Creative Commons BY and a few others marked Creative Commons BY-NC-SA. Bongani is concerned because she will have to charge the students for the cost of making copies. Bongani has been told that non-commercial means "not for profit" and she wonders if the students paying for the course, and her being (poorly) paid, make the use a commercial one
 
She also wishes to upload the same CC BY and CC BY-NC-SA resources to her personal blog which is licensed under CC BY-SA.
 
She has created her own teaching resource which includes some third party (other people's) material. Some third party material she has used in reliance on a copyright exception. Some of third party material is copied under a blanket licence. For some of the source material, she has no idea of the original source or identity of the author/copyright owner.
 
Bogani uses this resource to teach her students at the community college and has made the resource available on the college intranet for other teachers at the college to use as a teaching resource.
 
Bongani wishes to make her teaching resource available through Siyavula, curriki www.curriki.org/ and OER Commons www.oercommons.org/.
 
Questions (to be answered by each group)
 
Note: If you need additional information to answer any of these questions, identify that information and how it would influence your responses.

1. Can Bogani use material licensed under CC BY and CC BY-NC-SA in her classes?
2. Would your answer change for her blog?
3. What if she has Google Adsense running?
4. Can she post the resources licensed under CC BY-NC-SA on her CC BY-SA blog?
5. Has Bogani breached copyright in making her teaching resource? Can she share it with other teachers in her college? Can she upload it to a public OER site?

 
Questions to assist your understanding (not to be answered)

1. What is an open licence?
2. How do you know when a resource is under an open licence?
3. What does 'Attribution' require?
4. What does 'Share Alike' require?
5. What does 'Non Commercial' require?
6. If something is under an open licence, do exceptions apply?
7. Do the copyright exceptions and/or blanket licences in  Australian copyright law allow you to share material with others, and in what circumstances?