Digital Media Project - Berkman Ctr for Internet and Society, Harvard U - 0 views
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Lawyers, copyright officers for universities, book publishers, and even educators tend to defer to a conservative picture of copyright law and refrain from contributing to and participating in a robust commons. The TEACH Act indirectly encourages such caution by requiring institutions to prevent retention and unauthorized dissemination of copyrighted works that are shown in the classroom; the result is that schools may decide not to take advantage of the Act's provisions out of fear of sanctions for noncompliance.
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erring on the side of caution may in turn negatively serve the future of the fair use defense; if educators and others are unwilling to engage in new and creative uses of copyrighted materials, then legislators may respond by limiting fair use
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Noncommercial educational initiatives must struggle against the rise of a "clearance culture" that requires licenses for educational uses of content that are minimal or highly transformative
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Mellon Fndtn $ to study educational uses of content in the digital age, including "(i) student use, collection, and creation of diverse content (e.g. web pages, images, video, and audio); (ii) digital activity by other types of established institutions (e.g. public broadcasting; museums); (iii) educational content assembled and presented outside of any traditional institution, particularly on the internet (e.g. the Red Hot Jazz Archive; the Victorian Web); and (iv) grass-roots open source educational projects (e.g. Wikipedia; the online Samuel Pepys Diary)." Also addressing legal obstacles for good practices and effective use of digital media.