Heather Ford's Page

Date: Tuesday, 26 May, 2009 – 9am – 5pm
Location: African Commons Project offices at the Grace Hotel, 54 Bath Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg
Cost: R1,500 (no VAT)
Register and pay before Monday, 25 May

How can you give away your content and still produce revenue in an environment dominated by free? How are others using open content to produce new revenue models? What do Creative Commons licenses actually mean and what do they enable users and producers to do with licensed content? Under which circumstances does fair dealing enable me to reproduce materials still under copyright?

If you’re in the business of publishing content on the Internet, you need to know how copyright works, where you can use open licenses and how you can use content online without a license. This course introduces participants to the global trends in digital copyright, what makes copyright different online from in the analogue environment, what kinds of tools and content are available to republish for free online, and how to develop a digital copyright strategy that is based on an empowered understanding of what Web 2.0 businesses and organisations need to do to keep abreast of current trends. We look at case studies of companies like Flickr, Offbeatguides and Ozmo which all rely on a range of licensing conditions to provide both free and paid-for services, and investigate value propositions and customer relationship strategies that have made these business models a success.

At the end of the course, participants will have a first draft of a digital copyright strategy that responds to particular business and stakeholder needs of their company/organisation. Participants have also gone away with a host of new business models and ideas on how to use copyright licensing to design innovative new content solutions online.

The course is divided into 3 modules:

1. Global trends in online copyright: we look at four pioneers of the online copyright debate and the role that they have played in designing a copyright system that makes sense on the Internet;

2. Terms, tools and case studies: we look at the technical terms that we need to understand in order to develop a digital content and copyright strategy online (copyright, fair dealing, open licensing, commercial licensing etc)

3. Implementation: in the final module, we look at how to divide our inventory into categories that will use different licensing strategies – focusing on how to widely distribute the ‘free’ while retaining value in premium services/content.