Fair Use/Copyright Decisions in Federal Court Affect e-Learning

Just a few months ago, a federal court in Georgia handed down a 350-page ruling that adds a lot of clarification—as well as some new confusion—to the application of copyright laws in terms of fair use in educational contexts (with heavy implications for e-learning).

The blog Scholarly Communications @ Duke (dedicated to news and analysis on subjects of copyright and publication issues in higher education) does a great job of summarizing the court's findings in THIS POST. In addition to a concise, salient analysis of Judge Evans' decision, the blog offers wonderful resources on issues of copyright, fair use and publication. I'll be adding it to our resource links at the right, but take a look!

I am especially interested in (and grateful for) Duke University sharing its policy on electronic course content with us via this resource in the blog's side bar:

POLICY ON ELECTRONIC COURSE CONTENT
For help deciding whether course content in Blackboard or some other digital form is fair use or requires copyright permission, consult this policy document adopted by the Academic Council in February 2008.

The document contains a handy, clear checklist for use by faculty to ensure that they are operating within legal frameworks when using the work of others. We'll be developing similar resources for AAMU in the near future and look forward to announcing their availability right here!