The relation between education and copyright
When you put your effort, time and money into creating a work, you have the right to use the work as you like and receive the benefits from your work. Copyright is intended to protect the creator’s interests from others who want to use their work without permission. Exceptions to copyright are in place where ‘protected works may be used without the authorization of the rightholder and with or without payment of compensation’ (WIPO). Exceptions are often considered necessary to maintain an appropriate balance between on the one hand the interests of rightsholders and on the other hand the interests of users and/or public interests. I believe we need to look at the education exception in more refined way where we recognise and understand the importance of the education exception for the interests of us all.
Education is a public good. A society cannot function without a well-educated population. The education exception is a necessary and fair measure to enable good education. The education exception is not a kind favour of copyright holders to the world. It is inseparably connected to the right to education and the right to information.
Furthermore, in Europe, research and education is mostly publicly funded. Works used and/or created in or for education and research have often not done so without any help or assistance from the general public. The general public enabled them either indirectly by making sure there are people with a good education that could create materials or directly by enabling the creation by paying taxes. When research and education is publicly funded, it would be strange if only the rightsholders of these works could deny all others to access the products made in these fields.
Copyright is often placed in opposition to exceptions or limitations by traditional rightsholders such as publishing companies. As the words ‘exception’ and ‘limitation’ indicate, these are regularly considered as a deviation of the general rule that the author has the exclusive right to his or her work.
However, in reality it is not so black and white. This two dimensional view to copyright and exceptions obscures the way we view exceptions. In the case of education and research it is often incorrect to put an exception that enables education and research in opposition of the interests of rights holders, because in many cases the exception serves interests of both creators and users. We all benefit from good education. The interests of the creator, user and rightsholder cannot always be distinguished from each other nor can they simply be divided in two groups that are in opposition of each other. It is in the interest of us all that schools can use, albeit for a reasonable compensation, copyright protected material.
Materials providing information for educational purposes should not be used as mere commercial commodities of which all rights can be transferred to companies. The education exceptions is a reasonable tool to allow allow students to access works, because this would benefit the general public, all of us, and because the rightsholders often would not be able to have created this work without the general public. Therefore the education exception should not be put in opposition to copyright. Finding a balance between the public interest of good education and research and ‘the rightsholders’ cannot achieved by weighing the interests against each other, but by understanding where their common interests lie.
Do you want to find out more about copyright and education? Check out our handout that explains the basic concepts and how the current copyright reform will affect education.
