Course content: contracts with authors and teachers
Online schools are the mainstream of modern education. At the same time, the basis of online schools is their courses, which should be meaningful, original and popular. Because of their uniqueness, they are protected by copyright. In this article, you will find ways to lawfully use the courses in the online school.
- Why conclude contracts with course authors
- Methods for transferring exclusive rights to the course
- Use of materials for educational purposes
Why conclude an agreement with course authors
Imagine that an ordinary teacher writes a training manual or textbook for a specific discipline. They will be copyrighted. The same happens when writing a course for an online school. At the same time, the course includes absolutely all materials: texts, videos, plans, tests.
The creator of the course is the author, he owns the copyright, including the exclusive right. The person who owns the exclusive right is usually called the copyright holder. It is he who manages the course, grants the right to use or sells. Therefore, in order to use the course as part of an online school, you need to obtain an exclusive right either in full or with restrictions.
Methods for Transferring Exclusive Rights to a Course
Condition for the development of courses in the employment contract
If the author or teacher who writes the course works in an online school under an employment contract, then the course is recognized as a work-for-hire. This means that the exclusive right to the course belongs to the employer - the online school, therefore, the online school itself determines how to use this course and to what extent.
Another option, which the right to use belongs to the author, can be specified in the employment contract or in an additional agreement. Then a simple license will be concluded between the author and the online school. You can read more about this below in the same article.
At the same time, the author of the course has the right to a reward, so it is worth agreeing on its amount. However, if the online school has not used the course for more than 3 years, then the author has the exclusive right.
If there is an employment contract, no other agreements are required. However, the existence of an employment contract in itself does not automatically lead to the recognition of a work as an official one. In the event of a dispute, the employer will need to prove that the creation of the course was the job of the employee of the online school.
License agreement
Under a license agreement, the author has the right to transfer an exclusive right with certain restrictions, for example, in terms of time or purpose. In this case, it is indicated that the course will be used by a specific online school. The next thing to include in the license agreement is the ability to modify the course. After one or more streams of course participants, there may be a need to change the order of topics or change the complexity. During the course, errors in the tests may be revealed at all, which will need to be urgently corrected. All these situations should be provided for in the framework of the license agreement and determine whether the online school itself has the right to make changes to the course.
Course Transfer Agreement
If the author of the course is not a state member, but the online school wants the exclusive right to pass to it in full, you can enter into an exclusive right transfer agreement.
Remuneration is a prerequisite for a license agreement and an agreement on the transfer of rights. There are various models for determining remuneration:
- One-time payment;
- Recurring payments;
- Percentage of profit, depending, for example, on the number of course participants;
- A combination of these methods;
If the author has written several courses at once, it is possible to provide for a common reward for all. The most important thing is to choose the method, otherwise the contract will be recognized as not concluded, and therefore, the online school will not be entitled to use the course.
Use of materials for educational purposes
Undoubtedly, the law provides for the possibility of using objects of copyright for scientific or educational purposes. However, this does not apply to the online course in general. This is more suitable for materials that can be used within the course itself: citing articles or works, using photographs.
There are several criteria for a valid educational use:
- Justification of the volume of citation. In practice, the courts analyze the purpose of the quotation. If in one case it was justified to quote 13% of the work, then in another 14.6% turned out to be excessive (А40-48760 / 2016; А40-69432 / 15).
- An indication of the author (name and surname) and source. This criterion is mandatory, but there are no specific rules in the law, which the courts themselves pay attention to (А58-6605 / 2016).
Thus, the demand for an online school is determined, among other things, by its "stuffing" - courses. Courses are subject to copyright, so the school must be sure that it has the exclusive rights to courses transferred from authors. There are different ways to qualify for courses, depending on whether you have a course author or are in a civil contract with him.
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