Introducing a Levy Scheme to Online Educational Use of Copyrighted Works

Huang Weijie(Law School, Shenzhen University)

Abstract

It is common for teachers to use others' copyrighted works for the purpose of teaching. The current copyright law in many nations only exempts educational use in the context of offline classroom teaching. The use of others’ copyrighted material in online teaching may still constitute copyright infringement. To protect teachers from the chilling effect of copyright infringement, to safeguard the public's freedom to obtain knowledge, and to ensure the commensurability of the profits and responsibilities of online teaching platforms, this paper proposes a levy scheme for online teaching. Under the levy scheme, teachers are free to use others’ published work for the purpose of online teaching, provided that such use does not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and does not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interest of the copyright owner. Online teaching platforms should remunerate the copyright owner of the work used in the platform according to the number of participants of the course that uses such work. 

Keywords

Copyright; Fair use; Compulsory licenses; Levy schemes; Online teaching

References

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26549/jetm.v5i2.7713