Bill McGeveran, a fellow at the Berkman Center, points to how education is spreading all over, including online syllabi, non-traditional resources (e.g., www.RedHotJazz.com), open source education (e.g., Wikipedia.org, the Samuel Pepys diary), etc. But, e.g., the Center for History and New Media has had to constrain what they can share because, while teachers are permitted to use some copyrighted materials, they can’t share them. And academic access to music is restricted.

Bill’s group found four general categories of problems: 1. The law is unclear. 2. DRM. 3. It’s hard and expensive to clear rights. 4. The gatekeepers — e.g., school systems — are very cautious about digital rights, primarily because of the first three problems.

The law is not keeping up, he says.

Jackie Harlow, a Harvard Law student who works on the project, talks about the problems DRM — the unprecedented ability to locked content down (and lock users out) — raises when it comes to education using legitimate materials. Stuff gets locked in inadvertantly or to avoid litgation. E.g., Blackboard software locks content to others who use that software. (And just about every school uses Blackboard.)

Bill says that it can be very difficult to obtain a license. You have to figure out if it’s covered by Fair Use. You have to track down the license owner. The fees can be high. Key intermediaries are often ignorant and/or “chicken.”

Jackie says the “paths toward reform” include advancing the educational use exception to DMCA, educating educational users about DRM and promoting the adoption of open tools, working with content providers to develop educational-usable content, and changing gatekeeper attitudes. Bill says there are “interesting moves” toward automated copyright clearance. [Tags: education digital_rights berkman bill_mcgeveran jackie_harlow]

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