FW: BERKMAN CENTER WHITE PAPER RELEASED: "Digital Learning Challenge"

["Olga Francois" <OFrancois@xxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Kimberly Bonner
-----Original Message-----
From: William McGeveran [mailto:wmcgeveran@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2006 11:28 AM
Subject: BERKMAN CENTER WHITE PAPER RELEASED

On behalf of Terry Fisher, John Palfrey, and all of us here at the
Berkman Center, I am delighted to report the release of our foundational
white paper about education and copyright restrictions, entitled "The
Digital Learning Challenge: Obstacles to Educational Uses of Copyrighted
Material in the Digital Age."

The white paper can be accessed:

*  From the Berkman Center home page at www.cyber.law.harvard.edu.

*  As a navigable HTML web page at
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/media/files/copyrightandeducation.html

*  As a PDF download from SSRN at
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=923465

We are so grateful to everyone who helped make this project a reality:
the Mellon Foundation for its generous grant, all of the participants in
our workshops and the others we interviewed for their time and insights,
and the team of dedicated Berkman fellows and Harvard students for their
hard work.

As always, we welcome comments about the analysis.  We expect to
continue work in this area and I hope that we can also continue to draw
on the extraordinary expertise of those who helped with the project thus
far.

Warmest regards,

William McGeveran
Berkman Fellow

============
> *** Berkman White Paper, "The Digital Learning Challenge: Obstacles to

> Educational Uses of Copyrighted Material in the Digital Age" ***
>
> This foundational white paper reports on a year-long study examining
the relationship between copyright law and education by the Berkman
Center for Internet and Society, funded by a grant from the Andrew W.
> Mellon Foundation and led by Berkman Center Faculty Director William >
W. Fisher III and Berkman Fellow William McGeveran. The study explores >
whether innovative educational uses of digital technology - everything
> from DVDs in the classroom to digital music libraries to online >
resources such as Wikipedia -- are hampered by copyright restrictions.>
We found that provisions of copyright law concerning the educational>
use of copyrighted material, as well as the business and institutional>
structures shaped by that law, are among the most important obstacles>
to realizing the potential of digital technology in education.
>
> Drawing on research, interviews, two participatory workshops with
experts in the field, and the lessons drawn from four detailed case
studies, the white paper identifies four obstacles as particularly
serious ones: (1) Unclear or inadequate copyright law relating to
crucial provisions such as fair use and educational use; (2) Extensive
adoption of "digital rights management" technology to lock up
content;(3) Practical difficulties obtaining rights to use content when
licenses are necessary; and (4) Undue caution by gatekeepers such as
publishers or educational administrators.
>
> "The Digital Learning Challenge" concludes with some discussion of
paths toward reform that might improve the situation, including certain
types of legal reform, technological improvements in the rights
clearance process, educator agreement on best practices, and increased
use of open access distribution.