Copyright

We covered copyright in Monday's class. In 1995 I taught at a school in Bangkok. The school used photocopies of an entire book. This book was not cherished by staff and students alike. On a practical side when it came to teaching colours, how do you teach when all the colours were various shades of grey ? This was where I used my picture dictionary. Taiwan and China had much the same attitude as Thailand, photocopies of entire books were good enough. There is not much incentive for the author to produce work if it is promptly photocopied. I do not think the odd page being photocopied would be a problem. If I wrote a book I would be pretty annoyed if it was promptly copied by a school and I got no money for it whatsoever. It would destroy the incentive to produce original material. Thus overall the standard of material available would fall drastically.

The Government of the HKSAR has amended the copyright law to permit greater flexibility for teachers and students. A reasonable amount of copyright material is allowed to be included in presentations and lessons. Hong Kong's Amended Copyright Law states that fair could be the following "A teacher including a short clip of a film which is not being currently shown in cinemas, for illustration in his teaching presentation. The title of the film, the producer and the principal director must be acknowledged.". Thus if a teacher screened all of Avatar as an end of term treat for their class might find themselves behind bars. A brief clip of Flash Gordon with acknowledgments would not.

It was noticeable that British English was used and further the document was gender specific. I suspect a female teacher might well have a job arguing in court that the law did not apply to her and that she had not breached the Amended Copyright Laws.

Also mentioned was for an Intranet suitable security measures were in force and the copyright material was deleted after a year.

If a teacher or a student was to photocopy or scan an entire book that was deemed too expensive, that certainly would breach copyright laws.
http://www.ipd.gov.hk/eng/intellectual_property/copyright/edu_guide.pdf.

Intellectual Property Department. (2007). Hong Kong's amended copyright law: a guide for teachers and students. Retrieved 28 December, 2007. from http://www.ipd.gov.hk/eng/intellectual_property/copyright/edu_guide.pdf.