Ei-iE

Education, Research and Copyright

Spotlight

As educators, we advocate for a copyright framework that enables us to provide quality and innovative education and research. Education and research fit for the 21st century. Copyright needs to be reshaped in order to enhance research and quality public education which spans the lives of learners and takes place in a variety of formal and informal settings, online as well as offline.

We believe international copyright agreements and domestic law should be balanced between the rights of creators and the rights of users in order to support the development and dissemination of education, knowledge and research.

Access to quality education is a fundamental human right and a prerequisite for a thriving knowledge-based economy and for the advancement of science and innovation. We work to ensure copyright laws include exceptions that cover all relevant providers of education and research and permit the diversity of educational and research uses – both digital and analogue – of copyrighted content.

Our work on education, research and copyright

  1. Higher Education and Research 25 April 2023

    Expanding rights to develop critical thinking

    Miriam Socolovsky

    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?

    Read more Expanding rights to develop critical thinking
  2. Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 14 April 2023

    Great steps forward for teaching and research at the World Intellectual Property Organisation

    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),...

    Read more Great steps forward for teaching and research at the World Intellectual Property Organisation
  3. Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 24 November 2022

    The Copyright Experience of the University of the South Pacific: a Union Perspective

    Elizabeth Reade Fong

    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...

    Read more The Copyright Experience of the University of the South Pacific: a Union Perspective
  4. Fighting the commercialisation of education 13 June 2022

    Why the education community should be paying attention to the WTO E-commerce Work Programme

    Michael Geist

    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...

    Read more Why the education community should be paying attention to the WTO E-commerce Work Programme
  5. Future of work in education 9 May 2022

    Education and Copyright: obstacles to teaching in the digital age

    Teresa Nobre

    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,...

    Read more Education and Copyright: obstacles to teaching in the digital age
more: Our work on education, research and copyright

Publications

  1. Equity and inclusion

    Education and copyright: Perspectives from the classroom

    Preliminary findings
    15 March 2023

    We know from WIPO’s and our own research that copyright legislation is inadequate for education today. It creates barriers to ensure the right to education as well as curtails teachers’ academic freedom to choose and adapt materials including for cross-border collaboration and exchange.

    Education and copyright: Perspectives from the classroom
    1. Download
  2. Education, Research and Copyright

    Is it legal? Education and Copyright in the Digital Age

    23 May 2022

    This study intends to demonstrate whether copyright exceptions and limitations for educational purposes are fit for remote educational practices. Several studies commissioned by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) have analysed the copyright frameworks for education across the world8. The author has also previously analysed the fragmented landscape of provisions...

    Is it legal? Education and Copyright in the Digital Age
    1. Summary
    2. Is it legal? Education and Copyright in the Digital Age
  3. Fighting the commercialisation of education

    An education union guide to copyrights and copywrongs in education and research

    28 August 2019

    Copyright laws around the world are being changed to accommodate the digital environment. It is essential that education unions take an active role in copyright reforms to ensure that teachers and researchers are not deprived of their rights to use and build upon creative works for teaching, learning and research.

    An education union guide to copyrights and copywrongs in education and research
    1. Download
  5. Equity and inclusion

    The right to benefit from educational exceptions

    Factsheet
    8 March 2019

    In 2017 the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) commissioned a study to analyse copyright laws in the 191 WIPO Member States. One objective, among others, was to understand how countries protect educational exceptions from contractual and technological overrides. Education International advocates that when the law allows educators to use digital...

    The right to benefit from educational exceptions
    1. Download

Our policy on education, research and copyright