Thursday 19 October 2017

MUSIC EDUCATION: WHEN COPYRIGHT LAW PREVENTS BEST PRACTICE

Ambitious educators use new technologies in ways that the literature shows engages their students. For example, in music education, this might include arranging contemporary repertoire for ensembles and classroom instruments; creating recordings of each part in choral arrangements for students to learn aurally; providing templates, stems and loops of contemporary songs for students to remix or recompose; sharing their resources openly with other teachers online; and participating in an international professional learning network.

Yet in Australia, many best-practice, media rich learning activities may be deemed illegal by outdated copyright law and the lack of exceptions to infringement that educators enjoy in other countries. Does it matter, if educators’ work remains within the confines of their classrooms, or are they risking their whole career? What does it mean for open learning initiatives and communities of practice? How can forward thinking educators press for the law to be updated to support innovation in teaching and learning? Join experts from Sydney University’s Law School, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the Fisher Library for some lively debate and an opportunity to ask your own questions.

 

James Humberstone is Senior Lecturer and Program Director of Music Education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the University of Sydney. Well known for his music education advocacy work, in 2016 Humberstone published the university’s first MOOC (Massively Open Online Course), The Place of Music in 21st Century Education, and his 2016 TEDxOxford talk The Science of Dubstep has been viewed over 45,000 times. Humberstone’s research output spans traditional written work (recently published by Oxford University Press and in Musicology Australia) and non-traditional works as a composer. Recent creative outputs include the Noise Husbandry installation in the Action Stations exhibition at the Australian National Maritime Museum, a cross-arts collaboration (orchestra-choir-hip-hop-cinematography) Odysseus : Live which has attracted significant Australia Council funding, and a new song cycle The Weight of Light, due to premiere in early 2018.

Kimberlee Weatherall is a Professor of Law at the University of Sydney Law School, teaching and researching across intellectual property law including copyright. Kimberlee has published extensively in leading Australian and international journals, and is the editor, with Dr Rebecca Giblin, of What if we could Reimagine Copyright (2017, ANU Press), a provocative collection of essays that explores the goals of copyright law and how they might be better achieved if it could be redesigned from scratch. Her ARC-funded projects include two industry-linked grants, on the conception of consumers in trade mark law and on the availability and use of ebooks in Australian public libraries, as well as a sole-CI Discovery Grant addressing the development of IP enforcement provisions in trade agreements and other treaties. She has regularly given evidence to Parliamentary Committees including the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, and was a member of the Australian Government's Advisory Council on IP and the Advisory Committee Member to the Australian Law Reform Commission Inquiry, Copyright and the Digital Economy. Kimberlee is also a board member of the Australian Digital Alliance, and in that volunteer capacity has a long history of working with the education and cultural sectors on copyright reform issues.

Event details

• When:

  Thursday 19 October 2017
  5.30pm - 7.00pm

• Where:

  Rooms 218, Level 2, Fisher Library South (F04)

• Cost:

  Free
  
  PLEASE NOTE:
  A recording of this edtech talk will be posted after the event

   

registrations closed