Social Copyright Infringement
In the February 22, 2010 issue of Chemical Engineering and News (my husband’s magazine), an article in the education section entitled “Professors Cry Foul Over Website” got my attention. Bethany Halford wrote about a social web site called Course Hero. This site offers students access to study materials, lecture notes, old exams for $39.95/month. Course Hero contains over 6 million documents from over 3,500 colleges and universities.
Typically the creator of a work owns the copyright. Sometimes that may belong to the creator’s employer or assigned as a work-for-hire. The issue with Course Hero is whether or not the students who uploaded the material had the permission of the legal copyright holder.
Sites like You Tube, DocStoc, and Course Hero should abide by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and take down any material that was posted in violation. Unfortunately, the burden is placed on the copyright owner to issue a “take down” notice to the offending site. With the information explosion, monitoring for infringement and issues such notices requires a full-time effort.
What are your thoughts about about this article? Has your business been affected by copyright infringement? How did you deal with the issue? Please let us know, we’d like to interview you for an upcoming article.
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