[LINK] "Free for Education" license
Ann Moffatt
moffatt.a at bigpond.com
Sun Mar 13 19:16:05 EST 2005
have any linkers heard about ""Free for Education" http://www.aesharenet.com.au/FfE/ license endorsed by the education minister and marketed by a privatised company. "
a webmaster from an organisation i'm involved with has told me
"It appears that someone in the national area has decided license
everything on our national website under some "Free for Education"
license endorsed by the education minister and marketed by a privatised
company.
whoever decided to do this did not think through the repercussions. For example, the license allows our material to be edited without our consultation!
This to me is a very serious matter that affects a vast amount of our
intellectual property. Any of our web pages showing the mark are
affected by the license, and the license is automatically granted ..
nobody has to ask our permission.
it allows-
- ANY entity (commercial or otherwise) to use the works internally as
long as "education means a structured program of learning and/or
teaching for the benefit of a learner"
- the licensees can MAKE CHANGES (without us reviewing them) provided
that they are
- not "substantive"
- not "misleading" (wonder how that would pan out in the courts)
- if we accidentally have or put someone else's work up and it get
used by a licensee, we INDEMNIFY (cop the damages for) the licensee for
any loss or liability"
if anyone has more info on the seemingly odd concept, i'd be grateful to hear more.
peace
annm
*************************************************************************
Ann Moffatt FACS, FBCS, CITP, Grad Dip Technology Management
49 Raintree Avenue
BURRUM HEADS QLD 4659
tel +61 (0) 7 4129 5796
Director, Australian Computer Society Foundation
www.acsfoundation.com.au
************************************************************************
----- Original Message -----
From: Sam Stainsby
To: Angela Jones ; Bob Borsellino ; Marit Hegge ; Libby Connors ; Sara Gillingham ; David Murray ; John McKeon ; Lester Irving ; Howard Nielsen
Cc: Mark White ; Nigel Sim ; CJ Morgan ; Ann Moffatt ; Ned Lukies ; Elissa Jenkins
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 10:32 PM
Subject: urgent decision needed on "Free for Education" license
Hi all,
It appears that someone in the national area has decided license
everything on our national website under some "Free for Education"
license endorsed by the education minister and marketed by a privatised
company. See the "Free For Education" logo at the bottom of each page on
http://greens.org.au/ . Although I fully support the intentions of
making our work more available for teaching purposes, I'm alarmed by the
total lack of consultation with the IT experts in the state bodies about
this decision. I'm assuming that the authors of those works embodied
within the national website have also not been consulted either. I can
only think that the whoever decided to do this did not think through the
repercussions - see some of my concerns below in the previous message.
For example, the license allow our material to be edited without our
consultation! There are alternative ways of achieving the good
intentions of open licensing (see http://creativecommons.org - probably
the best example) that should be considered.
This to me is a very serious matter that affects a vast amount of our
intellectual property. Any of our web pages showing the mark are
affected by the license, and the license is automatically granted ..
nobody has to ask our permission. I'm recommending (personally - I
haven't had time to talk to the QLD IT team yet) that ManCom immediately
initiates the Quick Decision Making process to have the mark removed
(even if just temporarily) pending a review of the license conditions,
whether there are more suitable/appropriate licenses, and even just a
legal determination of who own the copyright for all material on the
website (we may be licensing works illegally if the Aust Greens don't
actually own the copyright, but rather the individual authors do).
Please act as quickly as possible on this, because the mark is already
up there!
PS: the national convener's (convener at greens.org.au) email address is
broken, so if anyone know how to contact Stuart, please pass this on.
Cheers,
Sam.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [ITIPC] AESharenet
Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 23:10:03 +1100
From: Sam Stainsby <sam at stainsby.id.au>
To: Greens IT <itipc at lists.nsw.greens.org.au>, agvitwg at yahoogroups.com
References: <d0lt4i+5ial at eGroups.com> <422EC8A6.4060908 at stainsby.id.au>
<1110366520.5414.11.camel at glerk>
That much is clear, and it is a good intention (but also easily achieved
with a Creative Commons license).
I'm reading the license now and my interpretation of some of the point
are a little disturbing (disclaimer: I'm by no mean a legal expert):
- ANY entity (commercial or otherwise) to use the works internally as
long as "education means a structured program of learning and/or
teaching for the benefit of a learner"
- the licensees can MAKE CHANGES (without us reviewing them) provided
that they are
- not "substantive"
- not "misleading" (wonder how that would pan out in the courts)
- if we accidentally have or put someone else's work up and it get
used by a licensee, we INDEMNIFY (cop the damages for) the licensee for
any loss or liability
I will be recommending to the Queensland Greens management committee to
invoke whatever quick decision process is necessary to have to mark
removed from the national site pending a review of the license
conditions, whether there are more suitable/appropriate licenses, and a
determination of who own the copyright for all material on the website.
-- Sam.
Martin Ellison wrote:
>It's an initiative of various state and federal education departments to
>share teaching materials.
>
>On Wed, 2005-03-09 at 20:57 +1100, Sam Stainsby wrote:
>
>
>>Hi all,
>>
>>Firstly apologies for cross posting to those subscribed to multiple
>>lists, but this is important I think.
>>
>>Does anyone else know about the endorsement of AESharenet "Free For
>>Education" (http://www.aesharenet.com.au/FfE/) that has just appeared on
>>the Australian Greens website? At first glance, this appears to involve
>>an implicit licensing of our website content to educational institutions
>>(and who knows who else). Maybe it's a good thing, and maybe it isn't.
>>I've never heard of the scheme myself and haven't had time to read up on
>>it yet. Personally, I use and recommend the Creative Common framework
>>for licensing my works (http://creativecommons.org/) if I want to make
>>them freely available yet still with some minimal strings attached.
>>Creative Commons doesn't involve the endorsement of a privatised company.
>>
>>What really concerns me is the lack of consultation in the process
>>before making what may be a "courageous" decision to license our content
>>to the world. Consider also that it may be an illegal move, unless every
>>single authors' permissions have been expressly given. I'm pretty sure
>>nobody has explicitly signed their copyright over to the Aust. Greens,
>>and even if they had, there are the Moral Rights consideration in the
>>Copyright Act 2000 to consider.
>>
>>Slight digression: While I'm at it, does anyone know who is actually
>>calling the shots on national IT? Nobody seems to know. I keep saying
>>this, but we REALLY need an active national IT working group with some
>>representation from the various states that have experts there willing
>>to help out. I'm happy to put my hand up to do some organisation, if
>>others are going to help. Please let me know if you will help or at
>>least support the idea in principle. I have several ideas on how we can
>>make IT work for us all at national level and save everyone some work
>>and money in the long run. Examples:
>> - dedicated server hosting, so that we can run our own Plone, chat
>>servers, VOIP, conferencing, databases,
>> etc.
>> - a simple branch website toolkit could be quite easy to do, based on
>>Plone: just instantiate a website (two clicks of the mouse with Plone)
>>and customise it and add virtual host entry and you are away
>> - a CD of recommended open source software to be circulated to
>>branches so that the can make copies for their members (also perhaps
>>even a customised bootable Linux CD for the brave - I dub it Greenix -
>>you saw it first here!!)
>> - national discussion forums (please, please, please can we get this
>>one .. we have the infrastructure already)
>> - etc. etc.
>>We would also have an opportunity to also provide these services to
>>other countries who cant afford or access such infrastructure.
>>
>>Cheers,
>>Sam.
>>
>>
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>--
>>NSW Greens ITC & IPR Policy circle email list
>>https://lists.nsw.greens.org.au/mailman/listinfo/itipc
>>
--
Sam Stainsby
E-mail .. sam at stainsby.id.au
Tel .. +61 3 6223 7455
Fax .. +61 3 6223 7455
Mob .. 0405 380 844
Jabber: sjstainsby at jabber.org
--
NSW Greens ITC & IPR Policy circle email list
https://lists.nsw.greens.org.au/mailman/listinfo/itipc
--
Sam Stainsby
E-mail .. sam at stainsby.id.au
Tel .. +61 3 6223 7455
Fax .. +61 3 6223 7455
Mob .. 0405 380 844
Jabber: sjstainsby at jabber.org
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