Interpreting Fair Dealing: An Exploration of Distance Instructors' Perceptions of Canadian Copyright Law
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Supervisor(s) and Their Department(s)
Examining Committee Member(s) and Their Department(s)
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Copyright law in Canada has been confusing for content users for many years. Educators and course developers need to understand these laws to ensure they take full advantage of their user rights, while not infringing on author copyright. Little is known about how Canadian post-secondary instructors interpret copyright law and the fair dealing clause. This qualitative, case study research explored interpretations of copyright law and fair dealing with instructors in a single mode Canadian distance education institution in order to discover issues that affected their use of content in course development and book authoring. Seven instructors were purposively selected to obtain a maximum variation sample and interviews were conducted. Thematic qualitative analysis of the interview transcripts revealed that the participants displayed high levels of confusion and lacked understanding of Canadian copyright law and fair dealing.