Top Public School Signs Multi-Million Dollar Deal To Copyright & Sell Its Curriculum

from the progress? dept

If you go back to the original intent of copyright law, it was to improve learning and knowledge. "Promoting the progress of science" really mean "knowledge" at the time it was written. But, these days, we've lost pretty much all touch with that original intention. Last year, we noted that there was a growing battle over whether or not teachers could sell their lesson plans, with some districts claiming copyright over all teacher curricula and lesson plans to make sure that only they could determine how those plans were used. Of course, in the past (and, for many, the present) teachers often freely shared curricula and lesson plans with each other, in an effort to spread the knowledge and help each other out.

But throw in a bit of copyright, and a chance to "profit" -- even for a public school -- and apparently the whole concept of sharing gets tossed out the window. Kevin Donovan alerts us to the news that publishing giant Pearson has signed a multi-million dollar deal with a public school district. Basically, Pearson is giving the Montgomery County Public Schools $2.25 million for the right to their curricula, which it will sell. The schools will also get a 3% royalty. Pearson can change the curricula if it wants, so it might not even be what the teachers there put together, but they're apparently trying to build up a big brand around this school district, which tends to do well in various metrics.

Of course, some people are quite uncomfortable with this. Now the teachers won't be able to share the curriculum they themselves develop. And that could come back to haunt them. Will teachers at other schools be willing to share their own curricula with schools that are locking down and selling their own? One of the dissenting school board members (only two were against the deal) is reasonably worried that deals like this may turn teachers into sales people, rather than teachers.

Filed Under: copyright, curriculum, education, lesson plans, public schools
Companies: montgomery county public schools, pearson

EFF Launches Copyright Curriculum To Counter RIAA Propaganda Being Handed Out To Schools

from the good-news dept

It's been quite troubling that for years various schools have simply accepted propaganda and totally inaccurate "teaching materials" about copyright and used them to teach students. These programs have been created by both the RIAA and the MPAA, at times. More recently, a lobbying organization backed by both of those organizations, the Copyright Alliance (which has a long history of making up the most fantastic myths about copyright) has been pushing a copyright curriculum on schools. Tragically, unsuspecting schools have been using the pure propaganda put out by the Copyright Alliance as if it were some sort of impartial and accurate educational material on copyright. It's not. Not even close. Last year, one of the world's foremost experts in copyright, William Patry, took the Copyright Alliance's founder to task for having "chutzpah in abundance" in basically making up what copyright and fair use is about, and presenting himself as some sort of expert on the subject.

Unfortunately, schools that are using these materials often don't realize that they're simply accepting corporate propaganda, assuming that a front group like The Copyright Alliance is some sort of impartial player in the space, even though its curriculum is laughably bad, positioning any kind of copying as a high risk activity that should be avoided. Luckily, the EFF has finally launched a much more accurate and reasonable curriculum that was actually created by those who know the subject matter, rather than corporate execs and lobbyists. The EFF's curriculum is available at Teaching Copyright and is under a Creative Commons license. Unlike many of the propaganda copyright curricula, Teaching Copyright focuses on the broader picture, recognizing the fact that copyright is not for protecting creators, but is a deal between creators and the public to encourage creation within certain important limitations. It covers important concepts such as the public domain and fair use that are either ignored or downplayed in most of the curricula put out by the industry. This is a welcome addition to materials for schools to use to educate students on copyright.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright alliance, curriculum, education, eff, fair use, propaganda, public domain
Companies: eff

New Primary-School Curriculum: World War II Out, Twitter In?

from the @WWII-thanks,-but-we'll-ttyl dept

It's quite common for schools to struggle with how and what to teach kids when it comes to technology, often trying to balance newfangled topics like computer skills with the tried-and-true classics like history. But a new version of England's primary-school curriculum would make the teaching of certain historical topics, like the Victorian period and World War II, non-compulsory, but dictate that kids should "leave primary school familiar with blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter as sources of information and forms of communication." It's easy to see this story leading to knee-jerk reactions from people decrying how kids aren't learning what's important, and spending their time playing computer games, and so on. But the reactions in The Guardian's article seem, for the most part, pretty measured. While mentioning Twitter makes for a tasty headline, the real thrust of the new curriculum seems not to be to teach kids particular platforms like Twitter or blogs, but rather to build their technological understanding, and allows schools some flexibility in how they do so. That would follow some earlier UK government reports, which found the schools doing the best job of teaching IT skills were those that spread computer skills across multiple topics, rather than segregating them into specific IT courses. By integrating technology into the entire curriculum, just as technology is integrated across multiple aspects of modern life, it would seem that young students will be best prepared for future success.

Filed Under: curriculum, history, skills, technology, uk

Shouldn't The USPTO's Education Curriculum Be Accurate?

from the one-would-think-that's-the-point dept

I started my still-ongoing series of posts on intellectual property as a counter to the incredibly one-sided brain-washing educational campaigns put together by companies that only seemed to talk about how wonderful intellectual property was, never once mentioning the downsides or abuses. You can kind of understand this from companies who make their living off of intellectual property -- but it still seems quite questionable that any educational institution would accept and use such a biased "lesson plan." So, if the USPTO came out with its own lesson plan, you'd expect it to be a bit more balanced, right? Not so. The USPTO has created its own curriculum to try to teach kids "respect" for intellectual property law and it seems to be just as bad as the corporate backed lessons. Perhaps that's no surprise, as the USPTO gets its funds from patent application fees, so it has incentive to keep more applications coming in.

Even the way that USPTO boss Jon Dudas explains the program is problematic: "If you own something that is valuable, you want to protect it." That is not, and has never been, the purpose of the patent system. It's not about ownership and it's not about "protecting." It's about encouraging innovation. Simply by setting up this program as teaching kids about "protecting" something valuable they "own" is inaccurate. That's rather surprising, given that you would think the head of the USPTO would know what the patent system's purpose is. The website that hosts the curriculum has a short trailer video that has a clear false statement at the beginning, claiming "an invention needs to be protected by a patent." That would be quite a shock to Benjamin Franklin, who famously said of inventions: "That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously," before questioning the value of patents. Somehow, I get the feeling that statement didn't make it into the USPTO's lesson plan.

Filed Under: curriculum, education campaign, intellectual property, patents, uspto
Companies: uspto