With the big Covid-19 transition to online classes, lots of folks with varying levels of knowledge and technical sophistication have been tossed online, not only as new users of Web 2.0 and Social Media, etc., but also as teachers with responsibilities towards their students, colleagues and institutions. “Learn-as-you-go”? “Hit-the-ground-running”? Talk about understatement!
Teachers are amazingly adept and adaptive, and many ‘come alive’ when faced with a new challenge, and boy, oh boy, have we got a challenge. What was normal and regular in traditional classrooms in being tested, replaced and modified. This applies to IP Law matters — copyright, Passing Off, Trademark, Patents, Design Registration, etc.
The reason IP Law is coming up, is because teachers are discovering that social media is a great forum for learning experiments — it’s also a public forum, in many cases, and therefore less forgiving than the sheltered classroom, from the consequences of errors in IP Law.
Copy-and-paste, add music to your video, link to someone’s site — all of these seemingly benign actions to trigger negative and sometimes harsh legal responses, from folks with lots of lawyers and threatening legal terms and big words. Social Media sites and block your posts, ban you, suspend your user rights, etc.
What are the important key concepts that teachers need to grasp, right away?
I’ll venture a short list, and reserve the right to amend, as this series of posts evolves, or as the need arises:
- Libel and Defamation Laws, Privacy Laws (worldwide and in specific regions, i.e., North America, EU, Pacific Rim, etc.)
- Decency Laws, Age-Specific Censoring Laws, Obscenity Laws, Pornography, etc.
- How Clearances are acquired and How they work — to avoid encroachment or exposure to legal risk
- Copyright + Take Down Notices
- Fair Use Doctrine / Fair Dealing Laws
- Trademark, Logos
- General Advice on getting Permissions and giving credit, using Photography and Graphics, Reliable Sources, and Creative Commons Licensing.
Dottore Mark 