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Week 5

Important note in advance:

We cannot give any legal advice here. Copyright is and will remain a gray area, also because the EU requirements for Articles 13 and 17 are currently being cast into new laws in many countries. In case of doubt and for larger projects, you should definitely seek the advice of an experienced media lawyer. In larger organizations, social media guidelines also provide good advice on what is permitted and what is not.

Fundamental:

All media and works are subject to copyright and are protected until 70 years after the death of the author. What is protected is a work or part of a work, a "personal intellectual creation" that is reproduced on a medium.

Ideas or concepts, for example, are not protected.

Exceptions are the so called "Schrankenbestimmungen":

Quotations (§51 UrhG) and private copies (§54 UrhG) can be made without the permission of the author. permission of the author.

Questions:

What are absolute no-go's when curating?

  • Using images without copyrights.

  • Not analyzing Creative Commons licenses carefully and using and remixing content without being asked.

  • Pass off other people's articles as your own or take them over completely.

  • Using aggregated content from others and selling it in a product as your own.

  • Do not name the author!

How to protect yourself legally?

  • If the legal situation is unclear before linking / publishing, get written permission from the copyright holder or generally ask them directly whether you may link / use the content. They might be happy and ideally give you more ideas or links.

  • Do not use direct links whose content is stored in a portal where you have to register - such as information portals with paywalls and Massive Open Online Course platforms (MOOCs).

  • If you link to paid content (e.g. paid content or articles that are behind a paywall), highlight this so that your audience knows they have to pay for it.

  • If you're providing content for a large organization and want to make absolutely sure that everything is legally 100% safe, find a well-known and high-quality provider, such as Harvard Business Reviews or LinkedIn Learning, and curate relevant content in their portals.

  • If you not only take over, embed and forward high-quality media/content from others, but also add value yourself by integrating it into your own articles, podcasts or videos and thus demonstrate a high level of creative depth, linking and curation are usually legally unobjectionable.

Kata 7:

Make up your own mind about copyright and curation. Check the credits or the imprint of the channel of your collected Youtube videos for copyright notices (e.g. TED Talks). Read the imprint of blogs. Make clear which content you can mix and process in any case and which you are only allowed to link.

Kata 8:

Take the collection of links, videos, and articles you created in weeks 3 and 4. Organize your content. Which resources can you use safely? Which are super in terms of content, but unclear in terms of copyright? Which content can you describe and link to the maximum? Which authors do you want to contact?

Deepening kata:

Research whether you can find out more information about the legal framework for curation in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Learn how you can best assess the risks and implement them in your curation.

We'd love for you to share your research results with us (<stefan@learning-kurator.de or under our Twitter handles. @he_schuster, @maki_amw, @sdiepolder) so we can improve the Content Curation Guide together.

Further links to legal frameworks from which our summary was created:

Further reading on legal matters

  • The great guide to image, quotation and copyright law in question-and-answer style - a good article with many valuable explanations by Dr. Kerstin Hoffmann and Dr. Thomas Schwenke <https://www.kerstin-hoffmann.de/pr-doktor/zitieren-verlinken-bildrechte-urheberrecht-strafen/

  • The Podcast Rechtsbelehrung by Dr. Thomas Schwenke and Marcus Richter (e.g. episode 50) and the related article

  • <https://irights.info/ - Copyright and Creative Work in the Digital World - here's a guide on eLearning about legal issues in education, science and teaching

  • The blog www.rechtzweinull.de by Dr. Carsten Ullbricht with a somewhat older assessment on curation - <http://www.rechtzweinull.de/archives/1849-kuratierung-und-recht-rechtliche-grenzen-fuer-newsrooms-und-content-curation-im-internet.html

  • More detailed, approx. 12-minute video on copyright by nice2know

  • Book: Silvia Luber, Inga Geisler (2016): Online Trainings und Webinare - Von der Vermarktung bis zur Nachbereitung, Beltz-Verlag, Weinheim.

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