OUseful Info

A Really Simple Question About <embed>

In Reusing Third Party Materials, Not...? I asked the question:

[J]ust how we might make use of online, third party materials ... because as far as I can tell, "open content" licenses don't really lubricate the process of reusing such materials within our own courses, behind closed paywalls at all...

I was at a meeting yesterday discussing this issue, and there's something about the rights clearance, permission soliciting and granting process that I just don't get*.

So here's one question that comes to mind - what's implied and commonly understood by an <embed> code?

Who do I have to be to be able to take that code and just use it without asking anyone? Yes - I know - in the above case, the YouTube Terms and Conditions will tell me... ;-)

Who's responsible for ensuring that the content can be embedded and who's liable for any impropriety if the material is used subject to the license conditions on the page from which the embed code was obtained?

If the end user always has to clear rights, down the chain, widespread re-use of content won't happen - it's far too complicated...

I guess what I'm after is a clearing house, where the end user accepts the license from the page the embed code is originally made available on, and trusts that all rights upstream have been cleared as long as license conditions on the page the embed code was obtained from are honoured downstream.

In particular, I'm thinking of a clearing house for academic use - like Jorum [UPDATE: maybe not - "Why I won't be using Jorum" - thanks AJ...] or Intute, I guess? (Intute is interesting - if I link to a 3rd party website, my rights department will want to check that I'm using the link appropriately under the Terms and Conditions of the site I'm linking to. If I pull that link in from Intute, will they still want to check? Or do we assume that because the link is pulled via Intute, all's okay?)

[UPDATE: Stephen Downes (correctly;-) points out how rubbish a central repository is, and remind me of his "OpenID for DRM" model. What I was struggling with was how to avoid the need for repeated rights confirmation by different end users in the same sector. I guess if a digital object has had rights clearance checked by one institution, and these clearance credentials are acceptable directly by other institutions, then the okay only has to be achieved once, and then on the way out (so only resources that someone wants to use get cleared...]

Why should education get this favoured treatment, anyway, of commercially hoarding other people's work and saving ourselves the cost and trouble of producing it ourselves? Because I believe that the learner should have to put some effort in too, to get value from the material that is being used in the learning context.

I don't really hold with students as customers, buying enlightenment. If they are customers, then yes, educational institutions should pay for every scrap of 3rd party material we draw on. But if they are students, and they need to put their own effort in for the learning payoff, then our use of the 3rd party content is one of the ways we're helping them create their personal skills and knowledge structures. And we're helping the students unlock value from the 3rd party materials for themselves by putting those materials in some sort of context... We're not taking 3rd party ingredients, baking a cake, and handing it to our customers (if we were, we should pay for those ingredients); we're looking for sample ingredients that we can help our students learn to make their own cakes with... Maybe... I'm a bit out of my depth on this one!

* I do now, I think... Note to self - our rights department check that we are using 3rd party materials under the Terms and Conditions they are made available by. As course authors, we are not responsible. Wherever we get material from, Rights will want to check the usage rights. Maybe one day, rights clearance can be automated by making use of something like license information specified in XMP. Using CC material does not simplify the rights process - the rights will still need checking by someone else with the authority to sign off on them....

PS for anyone commenting on OpenLearn units or uploading content to OpenLearn LabSpace, be sure to take note of the Terms and Conditions, which state:

6.6 You may not through any submitted content create a hypertext link to a third party's website (home page, web page or documents contained within) without the prior consent in writing of us and the third party in question.

Just as a matter of public record, I assume that written permission has been obtained for every link to every external website that is mentioned in all the course materials on OpenLearn, as well as any links to third party content mentioned in unit comments?

PS In 'Understanding Me', Stephen Downes reflects on the nature of open content licences, which is relevant to this topic, I think...

PPS this industry promoted declaration of Copyright Principles for User Generated Content Services is also worth a look (via Ray Corrigan:-)

Tags: openlearn, creativecommons, licensing

Posted by ajh59 at October 17, 2007 12:46 PM