Media and Copyright

Yesterday, the curriculum team, joined by BVC media teams from various college departments, met with the college's copyright officer, Sheila Swan, to learn more about copyright and media use. Sheila addressed copyright with regards to print materials, videos and video housing, textbooks and accompanying digital assets, internet materials, and much more. When considering using media, Sheila suggested asking yourself the following:

1. Is your audience internal (within the college) or external (outside of the college)? If your audience is external, the fair dealing guidelines do not apply.
2. Is the project non-profit or for profit? If your project is for profit, the fair dealing guidelines do not apply.

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A great deal was covered in the meeting, but here are a few tips that I found particularly useful:

• For any media housed on a site that is based in another country, we must comply with that country's copyright laws. For example, YouTube is based in the United States, so if we produce a video and upload it to YouTube, it must comply with U.S. copyright laws. As well, users must comply with YouTube's license agreement.
• Don't use copyright infringing material. If you find a video on YouTube, make sure that the person who posted the content is the owner of that content. For example, if a person has posted a Discovery Science video on his channel, but does not own the rights to that video, don't use it. Instead, post the video from its original source.
• Copyright does not specify what citations must look like. The college has adopted the APA citation style, but we are not restricted to using APA. 
• A BVC copyright statement needs to be included on any works we publish.
• For more copyright information and resources, see: Copyright at Bow Valley College.

Thank you to Sheila for meeting with us and for helping clear the muddy water. Have copyright questions? The Fair Dealing Guidelines and the Copyright Permission Chart, provided by Sheila, are great places to start.