Steal this Presentation
Students, Piracy, and Elearning 2.0

Why listen to me?
Ravensbourne College is a small,
specialist institution serving the creative
industries. Our subjects are exclusively
design and communication.
I’m involved in a JISC-funded student
blogging project.

What we’ll cover
Some background.
What exactly is the problem?
Some things you can do about it.

I’m biased
New technology brings new business
opportunities.
Criminalising your customers doesn’t
count as “opportunity”.

The beginnings of ©
In 1710 the Statute of Anne broke the
Stationers’ monopoly, according
exclusive rights to authors for 28 years.
Donaldson vs Beckett in 1774 decided
that Parliament could limit (and had
limited) authors’ perpetual rights in
common law.

What this means
Copyright rests with the author not the
publisher.
The author’s right to a monopoly is
limited.
This is a cultural and class issue. The
Act of 1710 was “for the Encouragement
of Learning”.

Moving on
Copyright terms have gradually
increased.
This is interesting if you consider that
people are living longer - and have more
opportunities to be creative.
However, it makes a lot of sense if you
are a publisher.

Intellectual Property
Think of it as an “intellectual lease”.
A bargain with society.
Money offers an incentive to produce.
Too much monopoly stifles innovation.
Historically, short, or no, terms create
more economic dynamism.

Information Freedom
Some say “information wants to be
free”; computers make copyright obsolete.
A“UGC” model built on targeted
advertising certainly suits Google.
Freedom suits the Enlightenment ethos
of mass education to which we owe our
existence.

Where we are now
Many arts only exist today through
public subsidy. They aren’t economic.
There is no reason that selling music or
films should be inherently profitable.
“Piracy” scares around P2P filesharing
allow publishers to lobby for copyright to
be tilted in their favour.

Image courtesy of xkcd: http://xkcd.com/c256.html

Net-gen learners
“Digital natives” - take this with a pinch
of salt. The concept suits the hardware
and software industries quite nicely.
Nevertheless… research suggests that
more than 50% of teenagers use online
social networking sites.

Web 2.0 and the PLE
Though a buzz-word, “Web 2.0” is
nevertheless a useful term to encapsulate
“social or collaborative online services”.
Many students are already using
services like MySpace or YouTube.
Why not take advantage of this in
education?

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The PLE
Learners have their own computing
resource.
Learners make use of complex social
applications like Facebook.
These are valuable extra-institutional
communities of practice.
And often empowering for learners.

Learning 2.0
The end of the monolithic VLE?
Personal learning aggregators:
Institutional content, news, and
information just one piece of the
jigsaw.
Learner-owned, and learner-managed.

What’s the problem?
Publishers are more litigious these days.
File sharing is normal for students -
they are either unaware it’s wrong, or
have rationalised it.
Commercial cultural products are
intended to be popular. Students will
refer to them.

What can we do?
We’ve already made a start today.
Universities and Colleges have an
important stake in the “copyfight”.
But probably don’t want to get sued!
Raise your students’ awareness of the
issues - and why they’re important.

Thinking about ©
Do you download music?
Do you think it’s wrong?
Why pay you for your creative outputs?
Would you work for free, or ad-
supported?
For a good cause?

Creative Commons
Creative Commons licences encourage
sharing and “remixing”.
With proper attribution, students can
make use of CC-licensed material.
There’s a lot out there!
CC is also useful for students
themselves if they are using Web 2.0.

A bigger problem: staff
Staff can be surprisingly uninformed
about intellectual property issues.
Either blasé, or prone to overreact.
For some, software “piracy” and so on is
a risk-free route to rebellion.
Institutional policy can make this
worse!

Watch yourself
You are a content creator:
Learning objects;
Presentations;
Podcasts.
Respect copyright.
Use CC materials.

In summary
Digital technology poses a challenge to
traditional models of IPR.
As creators and disseminators of
knowledge, universities and colleges
have an important role to play.
Students will violate copyrights.
Educators should be aware of the issues.

Miles Metcalfe. Some rights reserved.