HKU Law promotes creative and ethical use of copyright works in education through short videos
Copyright is meant to encourage creativity by conferring exclusive rights on authors and enabling copyright owners to make profits by distributing or licensing copyright works. Nevertheless, in reality, the copyright regime is too complex and technical for layman to comprehend. To promote creative and ethical use of copyright works in education, Faculty of Law of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) produced a series of short videos, titled “Copyright Classroom”.
The project “Copyright Classroom”, led by Ms Alice Lee, Associate Dean (Academic Affairs) and Associate Professor of the Faculty of Law, is supported by the HKU Knowledge Exchange Funding and HKU Teaching Development Grant.
“There are burning questions regarding copyright issues in education. For example would it be copyright infringement when teachers and students include copyright works like images or music into their presentations, teaching/learning materials or social media? How about busking or school performance in which parody or adaptation is involved? Or merchandise to be sold at Lunar New Year Fair? Would any exception be granted? We hope, through these videos, both the education sector and general public would have a better understanding of the copyright principles; and be able to identify copyright exceptions in teaching and learning, and know where to look at if relevant resources and materials are needed.” said Ms Lee, who has been teaching and researching copyright law for more than 20 years and was the recipient of the 2019 University Distinguished Teaching Award. She also thanked law alumnus Uncle Siu for being the voice over, other team members and partner secondary schools for their inputs.
The copyright education videos, tailor-made for the tertiary, secondary and primary education sectors, are disseminated through https://hku.to/Copyright_Classroom “The Copyright Classroom – HKU” channel as well as Ms Lee’s education website www.law.hku.hk/collab.
There are 9 videos and more are coming. The content is in English, with English subtitles, and Ms Lee is happy to elaborate in English or Chinese for any interested educational institution. The project team has been organizing copyright seminars/webinars for schools that wish to engage their students and staff in more in-depth copyright discussion, and will continue to do so by invitation.