Comments on Copyright

Copyright is a huge and sensitive issue in the whole world, especially in Mainland China. And it should be taken seriously.

According to the Intellectual Property Department of HKSAR, copyright protection extends to the following areas concerning education: literary works, drama, music, artistic graphics and sculpture, photographs, computer software, sound recordings, films, broadcasts, cable programmes and typographical layouts.

As for in Mainland China, here is a link to the Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China: http://www.chinaiprlaw.com/english/laws/laws10.htm.



When we teachers are preparing the materials for our teaching by using multimedia, we have to take copyright into consideration. If some resources are directly downloadable, the most appropriate method is to provide the link to the download page, but not download it first and share with the students. We don’t know if the materials are permitted for redistribution by the original author or not. Whenever we quote videos or audios from websites, e.g. Youtube, we also need to clearly mark their original sources.

What about texts? It really is a tough issue. We have to be very cautious in selecting and quoting texts. According to Article 22 in Copyright Law of PRC, “in the following cases, a work may be exploited without permission from, and without payment of remuneration to, the copyright owner, provided that the name of the author and the title of the work shall be mentioned and the other rights enjoyed by the copyright owner by virtue of this Law shall not be prejudiced: (6) translation, or reproduction in a small quantity of copies, of a published work for use by teachers or scientific researchers, in classroom teaching or scientific research, provided that the translation or reproduction shall not be published or distributed.” This is quite vague. What’s the definition of “a small quantity”? How to define “classroom teaching” and “scientific research”?

Nevertheless, copyright issue may provide the teachers with an opportunity to use authentic materials. Since the teachers are more familiar with their students, what they create may be more suitable for their teaching and learning.