What are the additional restrictions on fair use in online distance learning
When meeting the traditional fair use judgment standards Under the premise, it should also be noted that the technical characteristics of network information dissemination determine that the transmission of works in the online teaching process is by no means just a small number of copied works in traditional classroom teaching, but involves the issue of dissemination. For example, when every student uses a computer to learn an online course, he will inevitably copy the course materials to his or her own random access memory. Since online distance education has a wide audience, after the work is used in online teaching, its impact may greatly exceed the scope allowed by traditional fair use rules. In view of this, in order to protect the interests of copyright owners, there should be targeted additional restrictions on fair use in online distance learning to reduce the risk of copyright infringement. Specifically include:
(1) For users Limitations
Online education has the characteristics of being remote and non-real-time , enabling people to get rid of the constraints of space, time, economy, work and family relationships, and increase the access to education. The enrollment scale of each pilot university currently conducting modern distance education in my country is quite large. On the one hand, this promotes the further development of online teaching, and on the other hand, it also increases the difficulty of controlling the use of copyrighted works. According to the development purpose of online distance education and the value objectives of the reasonable use system stipulated by law, the scope of users should be strictly limited to registered students. Only in this way can we ensure that copyrighted works are used for education and teaching to reflect their rationality.
(2) Restrictions on the purpose of use
In online education, the basic rules for fair use of copyrighted works are consistent with the real world, and also It should be limited to teaching and research purposes. Specifically, for distance education institutions, their nature must be non-profit and cannot charge students excessive fees for commercial purposes; for students, they must be used for course learning, and unnecessary dissemination and copying of course materials are prohibited. Behavior. For example, in 1996, the American Fair Use FederationU ) points out in Recommendation 6 of the 5 Guidelines for Fair Use of Multimedia in Teaching: If certain conditions are met, teachers and students are allowed to use copyrighted works in preparation for multimedia projects; but the use of multimedia created by teachers is limited to face-to-face teaching and arrangements. Students conduct purposeful self-study and provide distance teaching and after-class review and self-study to online registered students [3] (P54, 55).
(three) pair Restrictions on the scope of use
Online distance education adopts It is a two-way interactive teaching model in which teachers and students can transfer various forms of works or work fragments such as text, graphics, audio and video through the Internet. The amount and type of information are significantly increased compared with traditional teaching. This will inevitably lead to a corresponding expansion of the scope of use of copyrighted works. However, in order to protect the interests of the copyright owner from changesFor large impacts, the scope of works that are allowed fair use must be strictly controlled. Copyright laws in various countries generally stipulate that the use of works for teaching purposes should be in a situation where the lecturer is explaining an argument or the use is an integral part of a course structure, that is, it is a limited proportion of the work and cannot be the core part. . For example, a lecturer might use the equivalent of a cut from a movie rather than a substantial portion of the movie [4]. Singapore’s copyright law also stipulates that the fair use of a work cannot exceed 1% of the total bytes; or although it exceeds 1%, it only belongs to one chapter or part of a chapter of the work. [5] (P78, 79) The use of other parts of the work should still be in the form of permission, and authorization from the copyright owner must be obtained and a certain fee must be paid. At present, the development of network technology and the establishment of copyright collective management organizations have enabled people to quickly and easily obtain authorization or sign licensing agreements through electronic contracts. This not only protects the economic benefits of the right holder, but also provides convenience for the use of the work.
(4) Restrictions on usage
Fair use of copyrighted works in any manner cannot damage copyright rights that people should enjoy according to law. In order to avoid exceeding the boundaries of fair use due to the rapid and widespread dissemination of online information, users should take certain measures to protect the interests of copyright owners. For example, relevant copyright information should be prompted during course transmission, including specifying the name of the author, title of work, etc.; only one permanent copy of the remote course can be retained in the server; certain technical measures should be taken to ensure that contact courses are only provided to registered students. opportunities; by monitoring the online use of courses to prevent students from further copying and disseminating copyrighted works; etc. In addition, online distance education institutions should also be responsible for notifying or publicizing the relevant rules for the use of works in distance education to teachers and students to prevent the misuse of copyright-protected content.
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