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It is characteristic of MOOCs to offer free access to the complete course offering for all participants. However the materials are to be read, used and even reused up to a certain extent (Wahid et al., 2015). Such practices have direct implications concerning Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and copyright.
When developing a MOOC there are two main IPR concerns that must be taken into account beforehand. The first one is choosing what information, lessons and materials will be included within the MOOC and what are the rights that the MOOC´s promoter has over them. The second is to decide under what terms will the materials be shared to users.
As per the selection of contents and the rights over them it should be taken into account that Berne Convention, to which United States and EU countries are members, states that copyright will protect, from the moment of its creation and without the need of registration “every production in the literary, scientific and artistic domain, whatever may be the mode or form of its expression” (https://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/2.html).
Thus, any extract from books or websites, photos or videos used in the MOOC is protected by copyright by default. Consequently, it is very important for the promoters to assess if they are entitled to use third parties’ content that are planning to include in the MOOC (copyright clearance). It is also relevant to define the terms of the license and/or transfer of rights over the content created by third parties and in-house staff.
As per the creation of contents and the use of third parties content it is important to get the consent of the authors by means of a license or general terms and to ensure that such consent covers the different uses of the works in the MOOC. The deliverance of materials to users also has copyright implications, mainly related to the authorised uses (i.e. to read, to copy, to readapt, to repurpose etc.), which are usually included within copyright clauses on the general terms and conditions of the course.
Platforms
The implementation and running of a MOOC needs not only to create the structure, methodology and content for the course, but also digital platform that supports the delivery of lessons, exercises and activities.
The alternatives for the universities are to create their own platform or to provide their MOOCs through already existing platforms. The second alternative is the most popular one since it is cheaper, more flexible and allows benefiting from the level of recognition of already existing MOOC platforms.
Generally the platform is selected depending on the goal of the courses. Additionally, the methodology and the distribution model of both university and host content provider should be taken into consideration when selecting the platform.
The platform provider acts in these cases as a hosting provider. Such position entails certain legal concerns that are going to we exposed in brief. First, it is important to define properly wh