"As part of our work we have developed a new engaging approach to copyright education sessions. For those of you who have ever delivered copyright training, you know it can often be a rather dry subject, that we often have difficulties persuading colleagues to attend. Well that will all be set to change, once you start thinking more creatively about copyright education. Instead of focusing on aspects of the law and thinking about what copyright might stop people from doing, our game encourages them to focus on four positive aspects to copyright. it is based on working in teams to tackle a number of common scenarios. We are looking to add new scenarios to the game all the time, to make it relevant for different types of staff and hope to start working on a version for PhD students.
The four ‘suits’ in the game are:
- Copyright works – what is the material that someone wants to use? Is it protected by copyright and how is it defined in the law?
- Usages, or what the law calls the ‘restricted acts’ that are the exclusive right of the copyright holder. How does what you want to do with a work map onto the usages as defined in the law?
- Licenses – how do licences work? What licences are available and how might they be used to enable you to go beyond what the law might allow
- Exceptions – what copyright exceptions exist in the UK and how can you make better use of them.