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Copyright and Fair Use
The issue of copyright and fair use is based on access to information and products for educational use. Individuals and companies developing educational materials specifically for the education market are entitled to protect their products, created to make a profit, othewise they will go out of business. In a free market, competition will determine the viability of products and reasonable costs. However, there are questions surrounding the use of materials that are not specifically created for the educational market yet are of great value in the educational process. The quality of education is compromised if educators, and ultimately students, cannot have access to this material. It might be argued that educators should produce their own materials, and many do. However, production is costly and resources for education are limited. If the use of copyrighted material does not violate the rights of the owner and is available for a marketable price, then the needs of both education and owners can be satisfied. If the copyright holder cannot be identified, or an agreement cannot be reached, then those resources are lost to education. However, many products and resources are frequently available free of charge for use as educational resources, with permission from the copyright holder. Many companies and publishing houses are currently engaging in marketing strategies that include competitive pricing of their products in order to gain a foothold in the educational market. The innovation of companies such as Netscape, Adobe, and RealNetworks in giving away some products free of charge, allows them to get a return on their investment through alternative means. For example, Netscape has been providing its web browser free to educational users, and uses advertising, production software, and supporting services as its source of income, while Adobe and RealNetworks have made their software available for free in order to sell their production software. The California Community Colleges has received substantial support from state government, industry, and foundations to install computers, networks, software, and courseware to enable students to learn from multimedia and the Internet. Increasingly, many companies recognize that education is a vast untapped market for technological products. Nationally, both public, non profit higher educational institutions and for-profit training institutions generate approximately $600 billion in revenues annually. The California Community Colleges has invested $15.4 million to train faculty in new technologies and to integrate this technology into the curriculum, and in the next five years, the CCC system stands to invest an additional $52.0 million for technology training. Technology training is particularly applicable to the area of distance education, which is highly dependent on the new interactive technologies of two-way television, multimedia, and the Internet. It is a promising solution that can provide access to learning opportunities for the unserved and underserved by reducing the barriers of geography and time that prevent so many people from receiving an adequate education. The free market has led to the development of educational materials for distributive learning and the competition has ultimately resulted in increasingly affordable prices. However, the cost of production is still running high, and the problem is in initiating the process by providing reasonable access for educators to evaluate and learn the new technologies. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 did not recognize the need for changes to accommodate the new interenational opportunities offered by the Internet and global satellites. The outcomes of the research initiated by Section 403 of the DMCA for the stakeholders, the producers, distributors, managers, and consumers (users) of digital resources can substantially impact the future for each affected group. There are already ways, such as the Copyright Clearance Center, to simplify the clearance and exchange of rights and royalties. However, there are many gray areas to be resolved and therefor the debate of access and fair use will continue. Recommendations presented by the Copyright Office to Congress for revision of the copyright law must ensure reasonable protection of intellectual property, a guarantee of access and fair use, and substantial support for education to adopt and utilize creative products that already exist to further its global mission. |
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