You know, I think I understand quite a bit about US copyright law. Still, I decided to take a four-week online course, Copyright for Educators and Librarians, run by Duke University. The instructors are Kevin Smith, M.L.S., J.D., Lisa A. Macklin, J.D., M.L.S., and Anne Gilliland, JD, MLS.
It has a hefty syllabus to read each week, plus a half dozen video lectures. The latter is rather interesting, but the former, much of it right out of the copyright law itself, is dry and occasionally self-contradictory. Work for hire, public domain, fair use – all complicated issues, and those were the ones I KNEW about. The rules regarding the term of copyright in the United States, based on various changes in the law, are mind-bending.
The week runs from Monday to Monday. There’s online class participation each week, and a 10-question test for the first three weeks, with a paper for the fourth.
Did OK the first week. But this coming period is complicated by a book review I’m doing on Tuesday, a wedding and another party I’m attending later in the week, plus a probable lengthy visit to the ortho guy, and quite possibly a vacation, though that is still in flux, after the expense of the recent car trouble. The bride at the wedding is named after me, no lie.
So I need to be terse here. I may not be commenting on your blogs or your Facebook pages; the former I’ll eventually get to; the latter, probably not, especially those FB quizzes. I may be slow approving your comments – but please make them anyway, especially re: yesterday’s post, because it’ll make The Daughter happy! – off and on, for the next three weeks, the duration of the course. It will not affect my blogging, in that I’ve now written a post for every day through August 14, seriously, and August 15 is started; but I’ll be slow to write on current events, significant deaths, and the like.
Know, however, my schadenfreude over the Happy Birthday song lawsuit is very great.