My contacts in the Glow team, responsible for rolling out Scotland's national intranet, have been exceptionally quick off the mark after m'colleague David, onto the Glow portal for the first time this morning, noticed something of a little concern in the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP):
By accessing this Website you are accepting and will be bound by the terms and conditions set out below. "Glow" means the Scottish Schools Digital Network Project operated by Learning Teaching Scotland. "We" or "us" means Research Machines plc of New Mill House, 183 Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxford OX14 4SE. "You" or "your" means any person accessing this Website or any pages on this Website.
GENERAL PROVISIONS
1. Copyright and Trade Marks All rights, including copyright, in the content of this Website, including but not limited to graphical images are owned or controlled by us.
(Emphasis added)
The problem for East Lothian would have been that the eduBuzz system is Creative Commons, share and sharealike. I also don't think this was the deal for Glow, after what has been said to ICT coordinators and in information sessions around the country.
But after a few emails back and forth I managed to get some confirmation of what will go into the real Glow, when the final (as final as an ever-changing intranet ever can be) version gets rolled out next session.
Legacy wording and new copyright for Glow
Basically, the wording of the AUP in the current Glow pilot environment is legacy text and refers only to the software design provided by RM. Specifically it does not relate to the content added by end users of the pilot services. It's also worth noting that, as in the first pilot, all content added by end users of the current pilot environment will be wiped completely at the close of Phase 2 anyway.
There is certainly no intention to have any condition implied in the wording on the AUP that would mean that users lose their intellectual property rights when posting material to Glow. The actual AUP for Glow is now in production and all user organisations are working with us to agree a final version of this for use when the live services are launched.
Needless to say, these little morning flutters from the blogosphere will help show how important it is that the AUP strikes a balance between proprietary, Creative Commons and all the others in the myriad of copyright options.
Well spotted by Dave. Just goes to show you should always read the small print. I very rarely do !!!
A good, and very important post, Ewan
Posted by: Brian Cunningham | March 27, 2007 at 04:17 PM
Hi Ewan,
I've not had much time to do more that log on and read the AUP, but I was concerned about the bit that seemed to suggest that we could not reproduce images of glow (except for short term personal use), this might limit a flickr group and a bit of blogging by glow mentors. Do you know if this is going to be so?
Posted by: John | March 27, 2007 at 07:11 PM
I think it's OK as long as you're not reproducing it for, I guess, your own VLE or a parody (for some that might be more problematic ;-). Ultimately, we don't want copycats.
Posted by: Ewan McIntosh | April 01, 2007 at 05:47 PM
Hope so, I've been posting and adding notes to flickr as Gordon has set up a Glow Piloting group.
Posted by: John | April 02, 2007 at 12:30 AM