just being a little mischievous here - I found this on another copyright blog - the excellent 1709 blog which is a very useful fund of information and contacts. 

 

While on the subject of terms of use ... this Kat did not receive an e-greeting from the UK's Copyright Licensing Agency this year, though he assumes that it's nothing personal since he receives lots of news from the CLA.  One of the Kat's friends did however receive this year's greeting, illustrated above.  This friend, who prefers on this occasion to remain anonymous, wonders if anyone else noticed the little bit at the bottom left-hand side of the greeting -- the bit with the image of a small but unmistakably red bird, in the familiar shape of the Twitter bird logo.

Now, it's quite possible that the CLA has negotiated something with Twitter and that there is nothing untoward about the little red bird.  However, if you visit the web page entitled Twitter Trademark and Content Display Policy and scroll down to the logo's terms of use ("Using the Twitter brand and trademarks"), you will find the following list of no-nos:

"Don't: 

Use speech bubbles or words around the bird.
Rotate or change the direction of the bird.
Animate the bird.
Duplicate the bird.
Change the color of the bird.
Use any other marks or logos to represent our brand".

Red faces, anyone?

Good afternoon fellow copyright friends

Thanks for your attention in 2012 and I do promise faithfully to blog more in 2013 - it's top of my New Year Resolutions!

2013 promises to be a very interesting copyright year - The Hargreaves Commission has published the plans for changes to legislation and those of us connected to the education sector look forward with particular interest to some very interesting proposals.

Our friends at the Copyright Licensing Agency have already started things off with an innovative approach to licensing for English schools through an agreement made with the DfE - no word yet of this coming to Scotland, but it's certainly something I'll be following with interest - if they can do something for schools, there's no reason why they can't do the same for FE.  If you want further information, go here - http://www.education.gov.uk/inthenews/inthenews/a00219131/copyright-licence-deal-to-save-schools-time-and-money

I know that for many, copyright is not the most entertaining subject in the world, but for all those sceptics - and for the afficiandos, there was the most wonderful TV programme on BBC 4 a couple of nights ago. Called "The World's Richest Songs" and written and presented by the excellent Mark Radcliffe, the programme told the story of the top ten highest royalty earning songs, interspersed with fascinating accounts of near misses and why all creators should try their damnedest to keep hold of and manage their copyright.  The programme is still available on the i-player at -
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01pjrt5/The_Richest_Songs_in_the_World/ and thanks to the wonderful world of rights, it is downloadable and can be kept for another 30 days.

If you, and students, where appropriate, have any interest in copyright at all, this is well worth seeing - it brings copyright alive and putting aside some of the smarminess of Bob Mann and Cynthia Weil (you'll see why if you watch), it shows how essential copyright and the bigger picture of intellectual property are to the running of any economy that encourages creators to create and users to use - and respect!

Thanks for reading - will be back soon!

 From sunny Dundee on the afternoon of Bonfire night 2012




Good afternoon fellow copyright people

sincere apologies for the delay in posting - thousands of excuses, but now back hoping to build up the blog as an effective way of keeping up to date with all copyright friends throughout the Scottish FE community - and beyond.

Will also be using the blog and Twitter account @copyrightfan to bring you current news and developments in the wonderful world of copyright, principally as it affects Colleges Scotland.

Just a few observations and comments for the moment -

Responses to IPO call for evidence

The Intellectual Property Office has issued the responses to the Hargreaves Commission for responses to the proposals for a Digital Copyright Exchange - I posted comments on behalf of the Scottish FE community, and it is interesting to see the views of some of the licensing agencies who also responded - more information at

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/hargreaves/hargreaves-copyright/hargreaves-copyright-dce/hargreaves-copyright-dce-response.htm

CLA update - code of conduct issued

Our friends at the CLA have issued a draft code of conduct - it was suggested by the Hargreaves Commission that licensing bodies such as CLA should have a code of conduct - and not before time, in my opinion.  I'm sure we can all find blips and glitches in the CLA's efforts but well done to them for producing theirs - just need to wait for the others now - codes of conduct are all very well, but some of our friendly (and not-so-friendly) collecting agencies are still monopolies and with the exception of CLA and ERA, appear to have no intention of negotiating fees, rights or repertoire with colleges as cliencts - the agencies are likely to see considerable decline in revenues if the projected decline in student numbers comes to fruition - that might make them sit up and take notice - or it might make them even more determined to squeeze as much as possible from the colleges to make up for lost revenues - we must remain vigilant!

Article on Digitital Rights Management

I came across this very interesting article from The Economist - I tweeted the link, but in case you missed it, here it is again -
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21565612-electronic-copyright-laws-are-bugging-readers%E2%80%94and-authors-pick-book
it's a very good article about the avoidance of Digital Rights Management (DRM) as they affect e-books etc - the article mentions Calibre, a piece of software that strips out DRM - not recommended that it is downloaded for college use!

Reply from MPLC

If you have read the latest edition of the Copyright Maze newsletter which I write for the Scottish FE community, you'll have noted that my letter to MPLC on behalf of the colleges was published - their reply came in just after the newsletter was distributed - here is the reply - which is not unexpected, I have to say - and I will be following up a number of the points with the company - I still stand by my original advice that colleges are more than adequately covered for the use of recordings either under the ERA and ERA+ licences and/or Section 34 of the current Copyright Act.




That's it for the moment - I promise I will keep this blog up-to-date - there's still a lot of work to be done in the promotion of copyright education and knowledge in the Scottish FE community - I don't want to see any colleague in any college ever caught out for the want of asking a question - infringement is more easily monitored on the web and penalties can be severe - financial demands can be bad enough, it's more the loss of face, goodwill and reputation that will damage the perpetrator.

Have a great bonfire night - I'm delighted to say that our two grandchildren from America are with us at the moment and we have a very good, public fireworks display not five minutes from the house - the weather promises to be cold, but clear and we should have a great evening.

Regards to you all - please pass on the word about the blog and the Twitter account - let's get talking, sharing views and opinions and make sure that levels of copyright awareness are as high as possible.

Alan Rae
5 November 2012