Week 8 : Hong Kong’s amended Copyright Law

My reflection:

“Fair dealing”

Teachers always copy some books, newspaper or on-line resources for teaching and learning purposes. I agree that the dealing with a copyright work is “fair” if the dealing is for non profit-making purpose, not for a commercial nature.


I know students copy the whole or a large portion of a textbook would not be considered “fair”. The point is that the textbooks are too expensive in Hong Kong. That is why some students or some teachers or some people go to Shenzhen’s book shops and buy textbooks or books. For example, a book is about HK$200 to HK$300 in Hong Kong but it is about 10RMB-20RMB in China, though the quality of paper is better in Hong Kong than in China. If the publishing company of Hong Kong would reduce the price of textbooks or books, it may attract people to buy them in Hong Kong.

I know most schools have already entered into licence agreements with the Hong Kong Reprographic Rights Licensing Society (HKRRLS). It means if teachers copy the whole of large portion of past paper of HKCEE to students, it is illegal. In reality, some students are poor and they do not have money to buy past papers of HKCEE. Teachers are difficult to make decision to copy the whole or large portion or small portion of past papers for their students.


Learning Management Systems

I think each learning method has its advantages and its disadvantages. Though Learning Management Systems (LMS) have some drawbacks, we cannot deny LMS have lots of benefits to learners. Today, there are lots of inform learnings such as discussion forum, blog, blackboard, e-mail, on-line learning, etc. They are good for our life-long learning. `