From Judith McDaniel
Months ago I wrote about Intellectual Property and how that is changing in the digital age. No one can “own” a syllabus any more. There is one just like yours on one of the many Open Courseware sites. Authors don’t have to cite information that is spread all over the internet, though they may want to do so for their own protection. Recently, my department just asked (politely but firmly) for me to open my online courses to graduate students who would be teaching them in the future. No need for them to reinvent everything.
Opening
The Library of Congress manages copyright issues. They have recently been putting out new rules about academic “fair use” of videos and print media. It’s not easy reading a copyright ruling, and I’m a law school grad.
But here’s the future, compliments of the New York Times:
“The Library of Congress, which has the power to define exceptions to an important copyright law, said…that it was legal to bypass a phone’s controls on what software it will run to get “lawfully obtained” programs to work. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit digital rights group, had asked for that exception to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to allow the so-called jailbreaking of iPhones and other devices.
‘This is a really important victory for iPhone owners,’ said Corynne McSherry, a senior staff lawyer with the foundation. ‘People who want to tinker with their phones and move outside of the Applesphere now have the ability to legally do that.’”
It is important, and not just for iPhone owners or software designers. It is important to all of us because it is one step closer to shared knowledge and shared use.
Tags: copyright, iPhone, Library of Congress, phone apps, shared use
