who owns it?

Who owns it? | Raymond Sheehan | October 8th, 2001

Has anybody on the list had experience of dealing with owners of copyright: requesting their assistance for research purposes? If so, what was the response?

Any suggestions about the most effective way to approach the copyright owners? And how long does it take to get a response?

As we recognise the importance of dealing with authentic materials, I think this could be an important consideration for many of us. It may help us, for example, to avoid the inanities of the new pre-Intermediate Headway I got on my desk today. One gorgeously presented article was presented as originating from Hi (read Hello) magazine, and dealt with the marriage of a famous footballer (read the {virtually} invincible Beckham) to a popstar... and their stunning lifestyle. I wondered if it was for reasons of copyright or language that the Headway writers couldn't get their acts together and get an authentic article on David and Victoria. As a young tuned-in learner, I would feel far more motivated to read about an internationally renowned couple than about some fake EFLese fabricated creations and simulations- the similarities to the real world best appreciated by the teacher and not the learner. Language classrooms don't always have to be parallel universes for the real world- we can incorporate the "real world" and real language/articles/ books. But how do we deal with the owners?

My most immediate reason for asking this question is that I want to copy some field-specific books and analyse the lexis for a CL project. However, in terms of the pages of newspapers/magazines we copy, or the videos of news events we record from TV, what are the ethical and legal details we need to be aware o when we introduce them into language classrooms?

Raymond
UAE

Copyright | Francesca Michalski | October 8th, 2001

Raymond, when I was doing my TDA assignment, I analysed part of a guided reader comparing it to the same part of the original text. I had read that the authors of guided readers followed lists of permitted words and structures issued by the publishers for each level of reader and wanted to have a look at the list for my reader. I found the publisher's website and then wrote to them explaining the situation and giving my tutor's e-mail in case they wanted to verify that I would only be using the list for study purposes. The person responsible at the publisher's sent me the list under the condition that I would send them a copy of my completed assignment and destroy the list once I'd finished. It's not actually a case of copyright, but it's a situation that has some similarities with yours.

To sum up, I recommend that you e-mail or write to the publishers and ask them what you should do.

Francesca

Re: Copyright | Colin Graham | October 21st, 2001

Hi Raymond, and other legal-eagles,

I am involved in Barbershop Harmony singing, and when I have made arrangements of copyright songs, I have usually been able to complete a standard permission to copy form, which has a limit of 200 copies, and submit that to one of two copyright clearing houses for music.

For text, if the source is the US, there is an online clearinghouse where you can also apply for permission to copy, but it doesn't provide you with the copyrighted text. You have to get that yourself!

For UK texts, you might want to check out the Copyright Licensing Agency site.

Pictures are usually separately copyrighted and copyright laws vary from country to country- it's minefield!

Hope this helps, anyway.

Colin
:-)

Re: Copyright | Raymond Sheehan | October 21st, 2001

Thanks, Colin and Francesca for your information about copyright. It sounds like a right murky area, but in the end I would hope that most copyright owners are willing to cooperate with well-intentioned researchers.

Raymond

Re: Copyright | Mary Lynn Hughes | October 29th, 2001

Raymond,

When I was chasing up copyright permissions for text included in my corpora for LEX and CL, I got the following from an (American) author's agent I'd written to (after having wasted months trying to correspond with the publisher):

'For your information, as long as the selection is not to be used in commercial publication you do not need permission to quote the text.   Commercial publication is any publication for which you receive money, whether academic or nonacademic.'

This makes it pretty clear that the criterion is commercial use. My request was in connection with extracts from a book, but I can't see any reason why it shouldn't apply to any form of text. Of course, if your paper is subsequently published, and you get paid for it, it becomes 'commercial'. Does this reflect the position in American law? Is British copyright law different?

As you say, this is a very murky area. The CL module says, 'It is the student's responsibility to ensure that all necessary copyright permissions are obtained for text used'.   No one really seems to know what is 'necessary', though, and from my limited experience, copyright is interpreted differently by different publishers, whose views may not reflect actual legal rights, so much as paranoia about their commercial interests (in some cases).   I think you are probably safe with acknowledging the source and copyright holders of any texts you use- at least where this is clear! This is certainly going to be my policy from now on.

Mary Lynn

 

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