Ei-iE

Is it acceptable that we cannot use all the material we need to teach? What if we must submit every pedagogical decision involving something produced by a third person for legal clearance? When the alternative is to pay, what restrictions and exclusions does it imply?

The 43rd meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s (WIPO) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) concluded with major wins for the rights of teachers and researchers to adapt and choose materials for quality education and research. Education International participated together with member organisations CONADU (Argentina), AUSPS (Fiji),...

Legislation is meant not only to protect but to bring equity. And copyright legislation is not meant to be any different. However, the reality on the ground in a developing country like Fiji has only reinforced the inequity of access to and, more importantly, the use of information for learning...

E-commerce has emerged in recent years as critical part of commercial activity. With mounting online sale of goods and delivery of services, the implications of e-commerce for the education community arise at both the commercial and policy levels. Indeed, e-commerce and online education delivery played an increasingly prominent and important...

Access to knowledge is an important aspect of the right to education . In order to respond to the needs in the classroom, teachers often complement traditional teaching resources (e.g., textbooks and other curated materials) with a wide spectrum of materials from a variety of sources (e.g., short videos, images,...

This year’s World Intellectual Property Day is being dedicated to the theme of youth empowerment . The focus is on recognition of the role of youth “stepping up to innovation challenges, using their energy and ingenuity, their curiosity and creativity to steer a course towards a better future.” Intellectual property...

A legal instrument on copyright exceptions for the use of materials for teaching, learning, research, and the work of cultural heritage organisations is still not available. According to Education International, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) missed an opportunity at its recent Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR)...

Education International and six other Global Union Federations joined together in the Asia-Pacific Region to condemn the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), signed on Sunday, 15 November 2020. The trade pact was negotiated in secrecy over more than seven years and many provisions remain unknown. The GUFs cited the danger...

The World Intellectual Property Organization’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights meets this week against the backdrop of a global health crisis that has fundamentally changed the way we teach and learn. Now copyright law must catch up.

On the occasion of World Teachers’ Day, 5 October, the Kurdistan Teachers’ Union (KTU) called on the government to improve educators’ working and living conditions and the quality of education at all levels.

Many economists predict that the COVID-19 pandemic will produce the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Policies and the details of their implementation will not only determine if economic recovery is successful, but if that recovery accelerates or slows the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals...

On World Intellectual Property Day, 26 April, Education International calls for copyright legislation to be urgently updated to ensure open access to research and education materials for teachers and researchers across the world. This need has been intensified by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has caused an unprecedented disruption in...

The measures taken by most governments to try to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic have been varied, and in some cases inadequate or too late. But almost everywhere in the world, cessation of face-to-face educational activities at all levels has been the rule.

The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) has staged a protest urging the government to sign a Copyright Amendment Bill that will improve access to quality education materials.

Educators at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) have advocated for exceptions and limitations and for an international instrument that will regulate education and research.

African nations actively participated in the development of the Sustainable Development Agenda that acknowledged the centrality of education in the achievement of all other plans for a better world. Like other nations of the world, they committed to the provision of a single, renewed education agenda that is holistic, ambitious...

Education International's decision to encourage discussion of an International Treaty concerning the exceptions and limitations to copyright for educational and research activities is both timely and necessary. The obstacles imposed on these activities by the excessively restrictive regulations in this area become remarkably difficult to overcome in the current context,...

I woke up in Budapest on a fine summer morning to deliver a lecture using materials I had prepared in Malaysia in accordance with copyright exceptions allowed in Malaysia. Just before the lecture, I was informed that my materials did not conform to copyright laws in the EU. Dismay! This...