Why is intellectual property management important?
There is now widespread recognition by policy makers and leading edge practitioners that solving the thorny problems surrounding copyright are prerequisites to the widespread and sustainable implementation of e-learning. At the same time, anecdotal evidence suggests these issues are poorly understood or totally ignored by many VET practitioners. Intellectual property rights management is a broad term that describes an organisation’s processes for managing rights creation, licencing and usage, whether the content is digital or not. This is sometimes confused with digital rights management (DRM). DRM may be a part of this process and refers to the use of digital technology to implement rights management. DRM is sometimes seen as a method of enforcing an organisation’s licencing conditions through automation. In its absence, enforcement is based on making usage conditions clear and explicit and providing a basis for possible legal action if they are breached. The licences offered by copyr
