RE: Of an avian flu pandemic and the TEACH Act

From: Jeffrey S. Ankrom <Ankrom[_at_]CopyrightTimes.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 16:20:01 -0400

A very good, useful checklist on the TEACH Act appears at http://copyright.iupui.edu/teachlist.htm .

If you go to the website of the Copyright Management Center < http://copyright.iupui.edu > at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, you will find a link to TEACH Act materials from the main page.

The TEACH Act does define what sort of distance education qualifies for privileges/exceptions under the Act.

Since I have no affiliation with IUPUI, I'll mention that their website is on my short list of the most reliable resources on copyright law. It's a good place to look for practical guidance.

Hope this helps!

Jeff

• * * * * Jeffrey S. Ankrom Attorney at Law 701 North Walnut Street Bloomington, IN 47404-3848 Tel. (812) 334-9010 Fax (812) 334-2171 Ankrom[_at_]CopyrightTimes.com
  • Original Message ----- From: "Jan Carmikle Dwyer" To: "CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property" Sent: 8/10/2006 11:35AM Subject: [CNI-(C)] Of an avian flu pandemic and the TEACH Act

I have a very interesting question from the media teaching resources lab here at my public university – anyone care to hazard an opinion? Here's something to tickle your brain. In the event of a pandemic that shut down University operations (classes cancelled, faculty and students told to remain home, etc.) thus preventing "face to face" teaching activities, would TEACH act exemptions for audio-visual material apply to classes that continued their operations online for the duration of the University shutdown? Or is there something in the TEACH act that explicitly defines what is and what is not distance education? In my environment, I would wonder if I could digitize copyright-protected videos and make them available online to the students in each class. All necessary means of electronic content protection would be used of course, including class roster authentication restrictions, streaming technology instead of web downloads or file sharing tools. etc.) My initial response is yes, but only if the switch was to distance learning as explicitly defined in the TEACH Act, and within the limitations spelled out therein as well. The pandemic would not make such uses fair use, and any of you in higher educational institutions know how much faculty like to think of all their uses as fair! Jan Carmikle Dwyer
Intellectual Property Officer
Technology Transfer Services/TIA/OVCR
University of California, Davis
1850 Research Park Dr Suite 100
Davis CA 95618-6134
Voice: 530-297-4493
Fax: 530-758-3276
Email: jcdwyer[_at_]ucdavis.edu

            copyright[_at_]ucdavis.edu
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www.research.ucdavis.edu/copyright Received on Fri Aug 11 2006 - 00:20:01 GMT