Sunday, November 4, 2007

To Do: Obtain Teaching Materials

In the implementation of instructional strategies teaching materials in Spanish would be obtained from Mexico, Spain, and other Latin American countries. The rules governing use of these materials seem favorable to educational uses of protected works. Spain, as well as Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Granada, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela and the United States are all member nations of the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Their agreements of 1996 from Geneva, Switzerland are understood to include free use of intellectual property, which means use without having to compensate the rights owner for the use of the work without authorization. Examples of this free use are:

1.) Quoting from a protected work, provided that the source of the quotation and the name of the author is mentioned, and that the extent of the quotation is compatible with fair practice.
2.) Use of works by way of illustration for teaching purpose
3.) Use of works for the purpose of news reporting

(Source: http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/freepublications/en/intproperty/909/wipo_pub_909.pdf on November 4, 2007)

These agreements are felt by some Latin Americans to serve big business, not the developing nations. Some Latin American countries have initiatives to abolish these copyright agreements and national copyright laws. The Literary and Artistic International Association is meeting this weekend in Punta del Este, Uruguay, for their annual congress to discuss just such issues.

There is a lot of "pirating" of books, DVD's and CD's that make reading, movies and music affordable for the poor. In Peru a pirated CD or book is called "Bamba" and commonly sold in the more rudimentary marketplaces. These international accords and national copyright laws are not well enforced in the case of pirated items in poor neighborhoods. This is especially true in Central America, according to Mr. Ballesteros who was the secretary general of the World Intellectual Property Organization from 1986 to 1999.

At any rate, the use of protected work for teaching purposes is clearly allowed by the OMPI, Organizacion Mundial de la Propiedad Intelectual (World Intellectual Property Organization) and can be used in the United States from all of these member countries for the Saturday School design. In fact, from my preliminary research, I suspect they may have fewer restrictions on their use for teaching purposes than materials produced and copyrighted in the United States

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