The highlights of the iHeritage 'Copyright for online heritage' course

1. Taking heritage online
Digital copyright and access

2. Why the need for this course (generally)?

3. One of the most important mistakes that people make in
collaborative online projects is in dealing with copyright as an
afterthought (handing it over to the lawyers to decide or even
copying and pasting from other projects).
Decisions about copyright and open licensing are absolutely
critical for collaborative online projects and will often determine
the direction of the project from word go.
Copyright for collaborative online projects could determine the
success or failure of a project that relies on volunteers. This
means that it should always be dealt with early on, and should
always start with the project team (rather than the lawyers).

4. This course is for that team.

5. Common questions that the workshop will answer
• How do I understand the term ‘open content’ as it relates to my project and my
own role in the project?
• How does Wikipedia manage copyright and how does this influence user
contribution?
• How do I mitigate risk while still keeping as much of my project open to user
collaboration as possible?
• How do others make ‘open content’ sustainable?
• What are the ethical norms that are emerging regarding the online use of South
African heritage and history?

6. aim of this course is for non-lawyers working on online
The
heritage/history projects to confidently be able to begin a
process within their organisation to develop an online
copyright strategy and workflow system.
The key outcome will be a first draft of a copyright strategy
for your project - complete with activities to engage
stakeholders and assess risk.

7. Outcomes
1.Participants will understand how copyright works and be able to distinguish
between the different rights associated with works on the Internet.
2.Participants will understand how to determine the copyright status of a work,
at what date copyright will lapse and the work fall into the public domain, and
how to undertake due diligence in order to find the copyright owner of a work.
3.Participants will be able to read and understand copyright implications of
terms and conditions and understand their impact.
4.Participants will understand all the options available in terms of copyright
management, licensing and permissions, and be able to make informed
decisions about their institution’s intellectual property and the intellectual
property that they hold custody over.
5.Participants will understand the impact of different copyright licensing models
on sustainability and business models.

8. Modules
•Trends, opportunities and threats
A global look at the open content movement online - case studies of best case
practice in sharing encyclopedic information / collaborative projects online.
•Terms and tools
What exactly is copyright and how do I make use of things like ‘exceptions and
limitations’, the ‘public domain’ and ‘Creative Commons licenses’ to make my
online collection user- and collaboration-friendly?
•Practical implementation
How does this all relate to my own collection in specific cases? How do I
develop and implement a copyright strategy in my team so that everyone is
educated about risk and work processes?

9. Modules
•Developing the strategy and work plan
Workshopping the first draft of a strategy that will include goals, stakeholder
identification, methodology, scenario-planning, measures for success, policy
development, risk management and tracking
[one or two days - depending on how far the group
would like to go with their copyright strategy]

10. Methodology Trainer: Heather Ford
• 3 short lectures (with video and • Wikimedia Foundation Advisory
demonstrations) interspersed by Board
conversations and workshopping of
the components of the strategy;
• Founder of the African Commons
Project and former ED of iCommons
• we subscribe to practical, (Creative Commons subsidiary)
participant-centered methodology
and will adapt teaching to suit the
• BJourn (Rhodes)
needs of the group.
Telecommunications Policy (Wits)
Digital Vision Fellow (Stanford)
Currently enrolled for postgrad at
Berkeley’s iSchool
• www.hblog.org

11. email: hfordsa@gmail.com or call 082 872 7374 or
011 327 3155