Last night I was told by Richard Lambert about an Australian company using our “Interesting Ways to use an iPad in the Classroom” resource as a handout at a sales event. You can see the image clearly showing how they have used it, breaking the terms of the CC license. The MD contacted me overnight after the deluge of comments via Twitter. This is my reply to Andrew Bennetto the Managing Director of edsoft Interactive.
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I am deeply disappointed about what I saw of the handout for your iPad Breakfast event. The presentation / resource “Interesting Ways to use an iPad in the Classroom” has been crafted by teachers all across the world willing to share their own ideas. That sense of openness and sharing is key to these resources – this ethos has been developed by myself and countless others, not just over a few months, but through years of encouragement and hard work.
Your company violated the terms of the license clearly stated on the title slide of the resource.
Just to be absolutely clear about how the licensing is unavoidable – when you open the document, via whichever link or method available, you see the title slide, which states:
“This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 License.”
I do not think there is any excuse to say that you were unaware of the license.
The final slide of the presentation also clearly states my name, email address, Twitter name and blog address. It is abundantly clear that I am technically the owner of the document. Once again, no excuse to say you were “not aware of the source.”
From the photograph I have seen that the pages have been edited to remove the names of the teachers that have contributed the idea to make it anonymous. Your logo suggests in fact that you own the document. The teachers who have taken the time to add their ideas deserve the proper attribution and once again this violates the license.
You did not give proper attribution for the entire document – but you also removed the correct attribution for each individual idea.
In your email you apologise, I trust that if it is one of your employees who has created this document that you take appropriate steps to ensure that it never happens again. On behalf of all of the teachers involved with the “Interesting Ways” series it is only right that I staunchly defend and protect the ethical manner with which they have been constructed and should be used.
In your email you go on to ask for permission to use the resource. I am sure you will understand that my answer has to be “No”.
In schools across the world there are teachers trying to educate our children about the correct use of digital content on the web, copyright and honest attribution – you are setting an extremely poor example.
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If you share my thoughts on this then please, let’s hear them!