Learning on ScreenJISC Legal
Attitude, awareness, assistance
So, what’s the answer? Attitude, awareness, assistance. First, universities and colleges need to entrench respect for creative rights, and the value of certainty in compliance. In addition to this, someone needs to have the institution’s backing in taking risk decisions when it comes to the grey areas. Second, those reusing other people’s stuff have to understand the rights situation, and know when they’ve an issue to sort out. Third, the institution has to make sure that it has the right scaffolding of training, assistance, budget, and rights clearance support to make things happen.
For some institutions, it may be possible to live without other people’s stuff, to avoid the complexities of clearance. The downside might be reinvention of the wheel (turning down a good wheel for a crooked one, indeed), and inefficiency. A second approach might be to constrain use of video (and other materials) to those which clearly have no intellectual property issues (either through the institution’s ownership of them, or through a blanket or open licence). A third approach is to wait for the law to change, but whatever legislative palliatives pop-up, the basic own-or-clear principle is going to be with us for a long time to come.
And just when you thought you’d cracked the intellectual property nut, there are other legal issues that need some consideration too. Films containing information about a living, identifiable, person may raise data protection issues. The use of film and video in the provision of education (and other services) brings with it duties not to discriminate on the grounds of disability, and with its multisensory nature, adjustments might be appropriate more frequently. And as with any other content, thought needs to be given to liability – are you sure that chemistry experiment demonstrated via YouTube by your lecturer is really safe to do home, as he claims?
Please release me, let me go (use your video)
www.jisclegal.ac.uk
Back to rights, I am a simple sort of guy, and I am always looking for a straightforward solution. Repealing the odd international convention and changing the entire nature of copyright law are on some people’s wish list. It isn’t going to happen soon, I’ll tell you. More sensibly, we can encourage film and video makers to consider how they want the fruits of the
ir labour reused in future, and invite them to use licensing which suits. Many of those stuck behind cameras would be flattered to have to have their work reused, or simply don’t care. A dial on the camera with ‘Creative Commons’ licence settings (as well as an ‘All rights reserved’ setting, of course), with the setting recorded in the metadata, would be a welcome addition.
In the meantime, certainty comes with ownership and clearance – accept and embrace that, and when it comes to good, effective use of the moving image in education, you’ll know your rights from your wrongs.
To download JISC Legal’s detailed guide on the legal considerations of recording lectures, including their model release form, visit: www.jisclegal.ac.uk/
Jason Miles-Campbell
Service Manager at JISC Legal
jason.miles-campbell@strath.ac.uk
