Subject: AGORA NEWSLETTER - APRIL 2000 Sender: agoranews-approval@agoralang.com To: agoranews@agoralang.com Reply-To: agoranews-editor@agoralang.com [snip] ******************************************************** FEATURE ARTICLE Le Petit Prince: An On-Line Posting War Just last month I went searching for an internet site that might sell me a copy of a _Le Petit Prince_ video. What I found as I used the search engines was shocking: many sites had taken the text and artwork of the original book and posted it. Some were live, some were deadends with the message "site closed down by Gallimard." Gallimard is apparently the publisher with current publishing rights to this world famous and beloved little story. And they were serious about chasing down violators (regardless of what planet they inhabitated). As if by coincidence, a discussion about _Le Petit Prince_ links arose on one of my favorite language teaching discussion lists. Again, shock took hold as I witnessed a few colleagues blithely report on these very sites I mentioned above and what wonderful resources they were. I hardly knew how to respond but fortunately another listero came to the rescue with a message I cite (with permission) below: I hate to be a wet blanket here, but please be aware that a number of the websites for the Little Prince that you're giving us URLs for are in BLATANT violation of copyright. For example, http://geocities.com/Paris/Boutique/9264/Ptprhome.htm contains the complete versions of the Little Prince in French and English. I'm very, very sorry, but this is THEFT, whether it was intended as such or not. You may think that's a very strong term. But the fact is, that text does not belong to you unless you buy it, and you CANNOT, I repeat, CANNOT post it on the Internet or download and use it in your classroom in its entirety either legally or ethically. (And by the way, the artwork for this text is also protected by copyright, and art rights are even more restrictive than text rights.) It doesn't matter that it's a beautiful text that will (once it enters public domain) belong to the ages. It doesn't matter that you're doing the Lord's work by teaching those kids, and that this text will change their lives forever and ever. It doesn't matter that you're not charging anyone for the material. And it doesn't matter if you say on your site where you took it from, or if you tell someone where they can buy copies of the book--they have little reason to buy the book from the legitimate owners if they can get it from you for free. If someone steals something from you, it doesn't make it any less a crime if the thief gives your address to the person they're giving the purloined item to, or if he tells them what store sells the same item... The copyright for this work is controlled by Gallimard and Harcourt. I had a lengthy discussion last week with the permissions and legal departments of Harcourt's Trade Division about this issue. They are constantly doing searches for internet violations of the copyright on this work, and have had a number of sites shut down already, either through gentle or less-than-gentle means. They have started proceedings against the Geocities site that has posted the text in 28 languages, and are now aware of FLTEACH as a source for finding additional violations. Please, please, do not post material that does not belong to you, and please do not send others to sites that violate other people's copyright. You risk some serious consequences. If you already have violated the copyright, I would suggest that you immediately remove any offending material. I don't want to come off as a villain in this, because I'm not. I'm simply a person of conscience who has devoted his entire adult life to making materials available for teachers to use in their classrooms. But the ability to do that depends entirely on protection of copyright, and on each individual teacher's integrity and cooperation. If authors know that the sweat of their brow and their creativity can be snatched from them and given away on the Internet with no remuneration to them for their efforts, a powerful incentive for creating materials will have been destroyed. I recognize that many of you are not aware of what copyright does or does not allow you to do with material you want to use in your classroom. Some copying is in fact legitimate and specifically authorized by copyright laws. The Association of American Publishers has an excellent website that provides one of the clearest explanations of copyright for teachers that I've ever come across. I would urge each of you to take a moment to go to their site and educate yourselves on this issue: http://www.publishers.org/home/abouta/highered/copy.htm When you get to this page, click on the link for "Guidelines for Classroom Copying." There are a number of other interesting resources there as well. The copyright cop, Keith Fry In last month's Agora Newsletter we featured an on-line dictionary site with link to the likes of the _Dictionnaire Larousse_ (Havas) and the _Dictionnaire Universel Francophone_ (Hachette/Edicef). The thing to notice is that those sites have URLs such as http://www.francophonie.hachette-livre.fr/ in which the publisher's name is embedded. This and other notices on the site are your cue to the site's legal status. We don't mean to come off as "scolds" here at Agora, and we know that the vast majority would never dream of incurring harm or stealing. But, as many cases of student internet cheating are coming to light, the very last thing members of the teaching profession need to do is to compromise their position by modeling less than perfect ethical behavior. Thanks for your help in "keeping it clean" by spreading the word about this among your colleagues. ********************************************* Set your Web Bookmark to the INTERACTIVE VERSION of this newsletter: http://agoralang.com/agora/agoranews_current.html All Agora Newsletters are also archived under the Agora Newsletter item of Agora's top level menu. If you do not already subscribe to this newsletter, just send a message to majordomo@agoralang.com, containing the single line: subscribe agoranews in the body of the message. THE AGORA LANGUAGE MARKETPLACE Please visit us often! www.agoralang.com The Agora Newsletter is copyright 1995-2000 Agora Language Marketplace.