Hi Mark,
I have mistaken when putting this thread in the wrong forum, namely “content forum”. I think here is a better place for it.
When I openned the content “Who on earth are we (part 3)”, under the heading “culture and religion”, I noticed that it was in fact the part 2. The third part is apparently missing. Could you take a look at it, please?
Serge
Hi Serge,
In looking at this Collection, I see that we are not allowed to have it on our site. It was shared by one of our members but the BBC’s material is copyright and can’t be made available in the LingQ Library. I recommend you import it directly from BBC’s site to your account if you want to study it using LingQ’s tools. I will be removing it from our library.
Sorry about that. We can’t offer copyrighted material on LingQ unless we have permission. We will approach the BBC to ask if we can use their material but in the meantime we will take it off.
I have already asked them for this particular series, but without response after several weeks…
I kind of assumed that but sent an email myself today. I’m not expecting much…
This copyright issue is very funny sometimes. Since the content is originally free, every lingQ member can go there and import the content, but the same content can’t be available in the library, even with citation and for free. This simply doesn’t make sense!
For the future, I would suggest that you create a pair of tools like this:
ana,
we have the same situation in Germany - we cannot bring the very interesting podcasts from radio transmitter. They don’t give answer and Vera told me the same. All the more I’m really happy that Vera could find podcasters who gave her permission. Only the podcasts have no transcript and I think it is a hard work. Often the podcasters speak very fast.
Yes, Irene, but don’t you think this is somewhat nonsensical?
For me, including those items into LingQ library should be viewed as free advertising for them, not as copyright infringement! From some episodes, the person can become a regular listener or reader, and them go directly to their sites.
It’s very frustrating that they don’t see things like this…
Ana, unfortunately I have no change to know what the cause is for the decision and at fist for not giving anwer. In my understanding it would be fair to say NO and WHY
I agree it is extremely frustrating and I think a lot of people would be quite happy to have their content “promoted” in the manner we do at LingQ. In the case of large organizations like the BBC, I’m sure they don’t even know why they don’t want their content used. At any rate, I think we can’t even do what you are suggesting Ana. It is a shame to force members to redo the importing job if one member has already done it but I can’t see a solution.
I think most of these media producers are people who couldn’t fully understand the digital world yet. Anyway, none of us can “fully” understand it, but some people are less stupid than others to see things can’t keep working the old way anymore.
I recognize the need for protecting authorship rights, but the copyright makes no sense in the digital era and will probably perish as we know it today. The barriers against copies of digital products are so artificial that I can barely believe they exist yet.
In free software and music worlds things are changing a little more quickly, and a lot of people have been discovering that they are better trying to make money from the services they provide than from the physical product itself.
That’s why I rarely pay for digital content, unless I consider the price really fair, but this is almost never the case. By the other side, I happily pay for a valuable service, involving human labor directed specifically toward me. People can like this scenario or not, but I strongly believe in future nobody will even think about selling easily reproducible bits… it’s like trying to sell sand grains in the desert…
Yes, Irene, I agree, a yes or no with an explanation would be the minimum…
In my native language, we would say these are baddly educated people…
I agree anapaula. I, too, think copyrights are going to have to disappear. I hope it happens sooner rather than later.
I got a nice response from the BBC but, unfortunately, we’re not allowed to use their stuff. Here is the email:
Hello Mark
thank you for writing.
Unfortunately we do not allow our content to be hosted on other web sites. The content may be downloaded and used in the classroom or for private study. It may, of course. be linked to but I regret that at this time we are not able to grant permission for it to be posted on your site. This status is under regular review and there may be changes in the future.
Apologies for the inconvenience.
Regards
Learning English team
bahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Now I’m no more sure if it is alowed to bring the articles from VOA.
There I couldn’t find a copyright but perhaps my reading is not as good or good anough.
Mark could you look for that? Allowed or NOT??
Take a look at the copyright statement of VOA in the following adress
http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/disclaim.cfm
My English is probably not refined enough to understand all the subtleties of this text but I think we must be particularly careful when podcasting a content picked in the numerous available sites on the Internet.
Thanks serge.
I think when we do no abbreviations and we bring a link to VOA we can use it - if I have understand correctly .
It says that it is perfectly fine to use the VOA content. It does also say, however, that some of the images may be licensed which means we should probably find our own images instead of using theirs.
Tanks Mark