Copyright Rules Eased For Distance Learning

fixion writes "This article in the Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the House Judiciary Committee unanimously approved bill S.487, the Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act of 2001 yesterday. The TEACH Act updates the Copyright Act to make it easier for educators involved in online distance education to use copyrighted materials without violating fair use guidelines. The Senate passed it well over a year ago, but it has been languishing in the House Judiciary Committee eve since, held up by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI). Since the Senate and House Committee passed identical bills, getting it through the full House and to the President to sign should happen fairly quickly now."

Please!

[Dr. Bent]

Please, please, please...for the love of God...do not abuse this law. I don't want to hear anything about anyone trying to defend sharing their MP3 collection by saying they were just trying to teach people about audio compression schemes. This is a damn good law and I don't want the 3l33t w4rez d00d's messing it up for the rest of us.

Amen. But there is hope...

[The_Guv'na]

Heres an intelligently forewarded email I got from a friend today. It seems the 3l33t w4rez d00d's might even have a chance...

The "Stella" awards rank up there with the Darwin awards. Stella Liebeck is
the 81-year-old lady who spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonalds. This
case inspired an annual award - The "Stella" Award for
the most frivolous lawsuit in the U.S. The following are this year's
candidates:

1. January 2000: A jury of her peers awarded Kathleen Robertson of Austin
Texas $780,000 after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was
running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were
understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little
bastard was Ms. Robertson's son.

2. June 1998: A 19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and
medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord.
Mr.Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the
car, when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.

3. October 1998: A Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania was leaving a
house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to
get the garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was
malfunctioning. He couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting
the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on
vacation. Mr.Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He
subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food. He
sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue
mental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of half a million dollars.

4. October 1999: Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas was awarded $14,500
and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door
neighbor's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in it's owner's fenced-in
yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might
have been just a little provoked at the time by Mr. Williams who was
shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.

5. May 2000: A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of
Lancaster, Pennsylvania $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke
her coccyx. The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson threw it at
her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

6. December 1997: Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware successfully sued the
owner of a nightclub in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom
window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth.
This occurred while Ms Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the
ladies room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000
and dental expenses.

Oh well... The law might be useful for as long as it takes to search KaZaA and write a cheque. The kidz dont give a crap about anyone else. The 'Stellas' site [stellaawards.com] is under construction.

Ali

Re:Amen. But there is hope...

[frankie]

Perhaps the damages were too high, but the McDonalds Coffee Lawsuit was NOT frivolous [google.com].

McDonalds was intentionally serving coffee at 180 degrees (too hot to drink, causes severe burns within seconds) and refused to settle with her for $20,000 (her costs for hospitalization and skin grafts). They deserved to lose the case.

Re:Amen. But there is hope...

[The_Guv'na]

Thanks! :) I'd have checked out the cases and added links if it wasn't midnight-ish when I posted.

I'm glad McDonald's actually gave the facts too, rather than ordering a truckload of shredders and/or answering every query with "I honestly cannot remember".

Ali

"Intelligently forwarded?" Nope, the list is BS...

[kiscica]

...and it's stale BS too; it's been circulating for a long time. Not a single one of the cases checks out. The whole thing is a fabrication. See this page [snopes2.com] on the ever-reliable Snopes. It's always worth doing a background check on these things before passing them on. A google search on "terrence dickson" brought the Snopes page up first, followed by hundreds of repetitions of the original canard.

As someone already noted, the actual "Stella" McDonald's/hot coffee case is real, but not so easily deemed a "frivolous" lawsuit when you examine the facts and background of the case.

Kiscica

Re:"Intelligently forwarded?" Nope, the list is BS

[The_Guv'na]

I see, thanks. I meant intelligently forewarded cos it wasn't forewarded to *everyone* on the person's list. I didn't check it out cos, as I mentioned, it was midnight.

My fsckup, and I'm never short of them.

Ali

This bill is crap

[anthony_dipierro]

I liked the old Title 17, Section 110(2), which this bill takes away. It seems to me that this version is much more restrictive.

Lets take this apart.

[MindStalker]

Old law will be in italics, new law will not.
(A) the performance or display is a regular part of the systematic instructional activities of a governmental body or a nonprofit educational institution; and
(A) the performance or display is made by, at the direction of, or under the actual supervision of an instructor as an integral part of a class session offered as a regular part of the systematic mediated instructional activities of a governmental body or an accredited nonprofit educational institution;
(C) the transmission is made primarily for-

(i) reception in classrooms or similar places normally devoted to instruction, or

(ii) reception by persons to whom the transmission is directed because their disabilities or other special circumstances prevent their attendance in classrooms or similar places normally devoted to instruction, or

(iii) reception by officers or employees of governmental bodies as a part of their official duties or employment;
(C) the transmission is made solely for, and, to the extent technologically feasible, the reception of such transmission is limited to--

`(i) students officially enrolled in the course for which the transmission is made; or

`(ii) officers or employees of governmental bodies as a part of their official duties or employment; and
`(D) the transmitting body or institution--

`(i) institutes policies regarding copyright, provides informational materials to faculty, students, and relevant staff members that accurately describe, and promote compliance with, the laws of the United States relating to copyright, and provides notice to students that materials used in connection with the course may be subject to copyright protection; and

`(ii) in the case of digital transmissions--

`(I) applies technological measures that reasonably prevent--

`(aa) retention of the work in accessible form by recipients of the transmission from the transmitting body or institution for longer than the class session; and

`(bb) unauthorized further dissemination of the work in accessible form by such recipients to others; and

And it continues this way, they also removed exemptions for religious uses, AND the previous version had an exemption for use of copywrited material used to gather funds for a charitible donation without permission. This is removed.

Compare the 2 versions yourself!
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap 1.html#110
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D? c107:1:./tem p/~c107RwkEFX::

Good for a while...

[gunner800]

...until school systems get enough funding to buy modern equipment, which will DRM'ed out the wazoo. Fortunately most government bodies are more interesting in kissing up to corporate funds that funding education, so schools will be using outdated, fully functional stuff for a while.