To a significant extent, copyright law governs the production, dissemination and consumption of knowledge and culture. In an "information society" it is particularly important to ensure that the gates of learning are kept wide open. It is in this context that an examination of copyright law with respect to education becomes crucial. When performing an audit of copyright law, it is essential to keep in mind international treaty obligations: particularly, the Berne Convention, the Agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights -- which is consequent to membership at the World Trade Organisation, and more recent treaties such as the World Intellectual Property Organization's Copyright Treaty. Taken together, they define the international copyright regime. It is also essential to keep in mind that even from the perspective of the multifaceted international obligations that countries are subject to, there is yet great flexibility as to how copyright may be legislated, especially given national goals such as literacy and education. This last point is, unfortunately, not yet adequately known. The following copyright law checklist is an attempt at gaining a better understanding of not only how intellectual property affects education but also what countries have within their power to do, to increase access to education of quality at all levels.

An online tool to help you determine if a work first published in the USA is protected by copyright.

Scenario covering intellectual property rights issues related to Photography and Publicly Exhibited Art

Guidance notes for teachers that accompany Scenario 1

A self-paced tutorial about open educational resources as alternatives to textbooks for college teachers. Visitors are invited to actively participate by posting Activity Reflection entries to the course Discussion area. This tutorial has 9 Lessons organized into 3 Units: Background, OER Sources, and OER Use.

There are a large number of Open-Source Software projects whose codebase is not clean. The goal of this module is to get developers to think more about modularity when creating solutions.

A list of the public domain sources for some of the printed musical examples in Connexions.

This interactive copyright tool can help you determine if an older work published in the U.S. is still protected by copyright.

Many classic works in Eastern philosophy are accessible via online sources on the Internet. Fortunately, many of the influential and abiding works are in the public domain; these readings provide a convenient way to produce quality learning experiences for almost anyone seeking information and help. Our present collection of edited readings is free but subject to the legal notice following the title page. By placing these selections in the public domain under the GFDL, the editors are, in effect, "open-sourcing" this product, in part, to minimize costs to interested students of philosophy and, in part, to make the readings widely available in a form convenient to a variety of readers. Moreover, users themselves can improve the product if they wish to do so. Viewed in this way, the release of these readings is, in a genuine sense, a small test of the Delphi effect in open-source publishing. This particular edition is not a completed work. It is the first step in the development of the open-source text. The development model of Readings in Eastern Philosophy is loosely patterned on the "release early, release often" model championed by Eric S. Raymond.[1] With the completion of version 1.0, various formats of this work can be made available for distribution. If the core reading and commentary prove useful, the successive revisions, readings, commentary, and other improvements by users can be released in incrementally numbered "stable" versions.

Anyone with connection to the Internet has access to a vast number of philosophical documents via online etexts. Fortunately, quite a bit of the best work in philosophy is in the public domain, and a few of these readings provide a convenient access for almost anyone seeking information and help in the history of aesthetics. However, many of the historically significant writings in aesthetics are not presently available on the Internet, and this open source text helps somewhat to remedy that need. The collection of readings selected for this open-source text is "free," subject to the legal notice following the title page. By placing these reading selections in the public domain, production costs are minimized, and users themselves can improve the product, if they wish to do so. Current working versions of the readings, individually, and the book, as a whole, are available in CVS Repository and tarball.[1] The current release is, in a sense, a small test of the Delphi effect in open source publishing. This edition of Readings in the History of Aesthetics (version 0.11) should not be viewed as a completed work. Our development process is loosely patterned on the "release early, release often" model championed by Eric S. Raymond. [2] When version 1.0 is complete, additional formats of the text will made available via the Internet for free distribution under the GNU Free Documentation License.[3] Our publication is based on Open Source DocBook, a system of writing structured documents using SGML or XML in a presentation-neutral form using open source programs. The functionality of DocBook is such that the same file can be published on the Web, printed as a standalone report, reprinted as part of a journal, processed into an audio file, changed into Braille, or converted to most other media types. If the core readings and commentary prove useful, successive revisions, readings, commentaries, and other improvements by users can be released in incrementally numbered "stable" versions.

A menos que se especifique de otra manera, está permitido copiar, distribuir, mostrar, re mezclar, y traducir estas obras, con atribución, bajo la licencia Creative Commons Attribution (by). Animamos a los lectores a publicar, bajar de la red y compartir estas traducciones. También puede enviarnos sus comentarios. Por favor, tenga en cuenta que algunos términos utilizados – tales como "dominio público" y "bienes comunales" ("commons") – pueden tener múltiples significados, y no se traducen fácilmente de una lengua a otra. Tales términos se han dejado en el inglés original o se han traducido al término equivalente más próximo.