Copyright Guide - Longview

The TEACH Act (Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization Act, 2002)  is a revision of one portion of the U.S. Copyright  Act.  The revision addresses issues of online and distance education. 

Use these reports and guides to the TEACH Act as you seek to understand this area of copyright or prepare materials for distance learning:

• Report on Copyright and Digital Distance Education
• TEACH Act
• Copyright Resources: TEACH Act and Distance Education

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has created some guidelines for distance education courses and intellectual property.

Ownership of Materials
The materials created by faculty members for distance education courses should be treated in exactly the same fashion as materials created by faculty members for traditional courses.

Changing and Updating Materials & Re-transmission of Courses
The AAUP Statement on Distance Education asserts that a "teacher's course presentation should not be recorded without the teacher's prior knowledge and consent. Recordings of course material are academic documents, and thus, as with other works of scholarship, should have their author or creator cited accordingly." The Statement on Copyright asserts faculty ownership of the copyright of traditional academic works "regardless of the physical medium" in which they appear.

• Courses and course presentations shall not be recorded without prior knowledge and consent of the faculty member. Such recordings are not to be re-used or revised without the written consent of the faculty member.
• Copyright of recordings of courses and course presentations shall be owned by the faculty member(s) as in the case of traditional course materials.
• The faculty member (or an appropriate faculty body) who creates the course (or adapts a pre-existing course) for use in distance education shall exercise control over the future use, modification, and distribution of recorded instructional material and shall determine whether the material should be revised or withdrawn from use.

Displays and Performances in Distance Education (Section 110(2)).

When materials are displayed or performed to students at remote locations, or for that matter "transmitted" to students at any location, the rules change.  You might find this Checklist useful in determining how to use resources in distance education.