MIT Offering Free Copyright Course Online

IANAL writes "MIT is offering Introduction to Copyright Law as a free online course. Interested Slashdotters might find it a good way to challenge their firmly held misconceptions about copyright law as it concerns fair use, Napster, Grokster, the GPL, and P2P filesharing, among other things. There's also an article about the course over on Groklaw."

Comments

Leaders in the area

[2.7182]

They've been offering some great math courses too. Try Strang's linear algebra. He is a genius of a teacher. And you can't copyright a matrix.

Re:Leaders in the area

[The Empiricist]

But the Wachowski brothers were able to copyright The Matrix.

Re:Leaders in the area

[ctennenh]

I just completed the lecture series for this course to prep for a prelim, as I'm out of practice in Linear Algebra. Wonderfully done. If I pass I'm going to find a way to buy him a beer in MA from CA. If I ever get a real academic job then I'm donating to the program. It's got to be one of the best education paradigms I've ever seen. See the other courses with full video at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/OCWHelp/avocw.htm .

Re:Leaders in the area

[n0rr1s]

The introduction to biology with Lander and Weinberg is excellent too. Lander in particular is a superb lecturer.

/.'d already?

[RingDev]

Or did they take it down?

Sorry, the page you requested was not found.

-Rick

Re:/.'d already?

[bassgoonist]

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-a nd-Computer-Science/6-912January--IAP--2006/Course Home/

bad url perhaps...

Re:/.'d already?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-a nd-Computer-Science/6-912January--IAP--2006/Course Home/index.htm

from the groklaw site seems to work

Re:/.'d already?

[bassgoonist]

and it has already been fixed...lol

Re:/.'d already?

[SNR monkey]

You clicked on the link? You must be new here.

Actual Link

[MLopat]

Here's the actual link:
Course 6.912

Late comers

[AntEater]

MIT is just getting around to this? The RIAA has been offering an "Introduction to Copyright Law" to select individuals for the past few years.

Re:Late comers

[Anonymous Coward]

The RIAA course is not free.

Re:Late comers

[Stellian]

I've already passed this subject.

Re:Late comers

[PetriBORG]

The difference between MIT offering it and the RIAA, are like going to Bible Studies course where Satan is the pastor.

LINK UPDATE

[ericlondaits]

The course is no longer available following the link in the article.

The new link is:

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-a nd-Computer-Science/6-912January--IAP--2006/Course Home/index.htm

Re:LINK UPDATE

[A beautiful mind]

Technical Requirements

Special software is required to use some of the files in this course: .rm

Wow, it's so bad they want me to delete it? Oh wait wait! That dot must have some significance..

Re:LINK UPDATE

[ericlondaits]

According to the course, rm is a standard unix utility whose abbreviated name stands for "Remove Malware".

In one of the lessons you're supposed to scan your p2p downloads directory for malware using rm.

Re:LINK UPDATE

[JoshJ]

If you click the ".rm" link, it takes you to a page that says:
.rm RealOne(TM) Player software is required to run the .rm files found on a course site.


Also, it seems that OCW is Free as in speech:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/terms-of-use.htm You are free:

* to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
* to make derivative works
Under the following conditions:
Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one.

GNU may not like the "noncommercial" clause, but I consider something free even if it has a noncommercial clause.

Re:Yes

[geoffspear]

Did Microsoft acquire MIT when I wasn't looking?

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't follow you. What does this have to do with Microsoft?

Ha

[GregNorc]

I don't have any misconceptions - I just believe what is moral is not always legal. (and vice versa in some cases)

free as in keg party?

[Speare]

I haven't RTFA yet, but my first question was, "is the course also free (libre)?" Can we post large non-trivial excerpts or wholesale clones elsewhere without any fear of MIT intellectual property bullying?

Re:free as in keg party?

[Zackbass]

Well if you had RTFA'd you notice the Creative Commons License 2.5 button on the bottom of the page. Many professors and assistants go to great lengths to get permission to post materials they use in courses (I get notices from time to time for permission to post diagrams from our FSAE team), find alternative Free sources, and strip out non-Free material. It usually works out very well since a lot of classes rely almost exclusively on the professor's own material.

MIT != M$

[Anonymous Coward]

BWAHAHAHAHA

What the fuck are you on, you blithering fucktard?!

Ok, I'll ask...

[cybermage]

The submitter's email address is shown as: ianal@riaa.com

If that's accurate, should we really be taking copyright advice from the RIAA?

Re:Ok, I'll ask...

[NthDegree256]

Especially from someone who isn't a lawyer?

TTFC

[Anonymous Coward]

Take The F'ing Course. Then you'll know!

MIT IAP

[jaxon6]

The IAP at MIT is a really neat concept. Anybody can take almost any class, and almost anybody can offer a class to teach. One that caught my eye when I worked there (never took one) was a class on 'players'. You know - those among us with the lady charm; how to be one, how to spot one, etc..

A friend of mine took a welding course during IAP, just because welding random stuff in January is definitely fun in my book.

Keith Winstein

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

The course was taught by Keith Winstein, the same guy who as senior editor of The Tech interviewed Jack Valenti and showed him his DeCSS Perl script.

Link?

[Anonymous Coward]

Got a link for that?

Re:Link?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is this thing called "Google" to "get links", which is great, I use it all the time. You type in what you want and it gives you the link. For example you might type in

"Strang linear algebra online course"

It's also great for shopping, finding old friends, and all kinds of things!

OpenCourseWare

[antonymous]

Just so that everyone is aware, MIT's OCW program has been offering the lectures, course materials, etc. for almost all of their undergrad courses. They only provide the bibliographic info for copyrighted reading materials though (not links to the actual text) - you'll have to find that yourself.

Too bad it's not from Yale

[Anonymous Coward]

Law isn't exactly what MIT is an expert in.

Anyone going to take it, want to discuss, etc?

[loraksus]

If so, feel free to email me - my username @gmail.com

why is this news? everyone does it

[sentientbrendan]

A number of good universities offer much of their computer science curriculum online, usually just in the form of uploading course notes, or letting the public have access to their class websites. MIT notably has the opencourseware.

Realistically all these online classes do is let you see what sort of reading you'd need to do for the actual classes. Aside from that they give you access to slides which may or may not be more enlightening than the book. I've yet to see a class that's uploaded videotaped lectures.

UW's (quite notable) computer science program has every year's class website online, and from what I've seen they generally have more material than MIT's online stuff...

Re:why is this news? everyone does it

[Jezter!* $nothername]

It's faintly ironic that in the UK, where for nearly 40 years we've had access to Open University programmes on TV (BBC2), the last ever edition was televised just over a week ago.
The courses were part of a true degree path and, as they were shown after normal terrestial television had finished for the night (usually between about 03.30 and 06.00), a godsend to insomniacs - some of whom, like me, learned about all sorts of fascinating subjects. Happy hours immersed in lectures on everything from Engineering, through History to Quantum Mechanics, given by professors dressed in true 1960's/70's style (flared trousers, neckerchiefs, massive sideburns etc.).

The reason given for the TV programming demise? Death by internet and DVD's, which is where the courses can now be obtained.
I'm gonna miss those near hippy lecturers though, as they were often more entertaining than their subject matter.

Very Cool...

[PreacherTom]

This deserved primary front page attention. Much thanks for sharing this high quality and very informative offering!

Great! Now we can answer those MP3 questions!

[KWTm]

There were questions left unanswered from a previous Slashdot article with questions about the legality of copying CD's under various circumstances. Maybe, with this course, we would be able to clear up some of the confusion. One particular set of questions was:

1. If I purchase a CD and it is subsequently stolen (along with my 5 disc changer *@$#!!) do I retain any rights to listen to that music?
. a. Are the .mp3 files of that CD on my computer legal or do they now belong to the thief too?
. b. Can I re-burn a CD from the .mp3s and is that legal?
. c. Does me having a backup copy of the files on my computer mean I can't make an insurance claim?
. d. What if it is destroyed (for example by a fire) rather than stolen?

2. If I purchase a CD and it is subsequently scratched or broken to the point where it is not playable, can I legally download the songs from that CD from a file-sharing network?

3. If I purchase the DVD for a movie, could I legally download songs from the soundtrack for that movie from a file-sharing network?

4. If I purchase a CD that our entire family listens to, and then my daughter leaves for College, can she legally take a copy of an .mp3 ripped from that CD with her on her computer? or - similarly - could she take the disc and could I keep the .mp3 on my computer?