User:Psubhashish/OpenSpeaks/sat

Consent
In the context of language documentation, consent is often given voluntarily by the interviewee to the interviewer. It indicates a prior approval for the recording. The interviewer would request the interviewer their permission for the recording. The interviewee will need to understand the request. Then they would give explicit permission for the recording and the subsequent publication of the recorded media content. This chapter discusses the how, when, where and who for acquiring consent.
 * 7 Jan

In many interviews, an indirect consent is assumed when the archivist sets up the recording equipment like camera and microphone. It is assumed that a person who is being interviewed is aware of the recording by looking at those equipment. But this is not universally applicable. The interviewee might be visually impaired or they might be unaware of the recording process. Also, it is hard to prove legally or ethically at a later date that such a consent is good enough in case of a conflict.

Written consent

It is always recommended to use a written or a printed consent form. If using a printed form, make two copies: one for the interviewer and the other for the interviewee. The interviewee should be an adult literate who can understand the text in the form to provide consent by signing it. If the interviewee cannot provide consent then please discuss who should provide consent on their behalf. An adult parent or guardian in case of a minor can provide consent for a minor. A caretaker or a family member can provide consent for an interviewee with physical disability. It is strongly advised to not interview a person with mental disability for ethical reasons.

See an example form below. You can also copy the content, modify if needed and translate into your preferred language (preferably an official language used in the respective jurisdiction).

A document like above becomes a mutual agreement of consent. It might not be a legal document. It also contains terms like "Open Access" and "Creative Commons" which are explained later in this chapter. If a written consent is not feasible for any reason, a verbal consent in a recorded form can be asked for.

Verbal consent

It is not always possible to acquire consent in many cases. For instance, the interviewer and the interviewee might speak different languages. The interviewee might be illiterate or have a disability to understand a written consent. In such a case, it would not be ethical to acquire a written consent even if the interviewee is willing to sign. Let us look at some scenarios that will help while acquiring consent. There can be endless scenarios beyond the above. There can also be situations while acquiring prior consent would not be possible. In such a case, keep the recording very private and acquire consent as soon as possible. If needed, mention about the delay in the consent form for transparency. If you cannot acquire the consent, you should not use the content in your final production. You should destroy the recording immediately instead. If the recording is vital to your production, then you have to ensure all personal information is redacted. With many modern tools, it is now easier to find personal information in digital content. So, it is strongly advised to not publish content that are acquired without consent.

It is important to note that consent is not just a legal matter, but it is very much a social, ethical and moral subject. It has to be done in a careful manner with mutual agreement.

Copyright
Copyright is associated to the legal ownership of the content and it is used to protect the content from unlawful use. In the context of rights over any content, moral right and copyright are both discussed. Moral rights are an ethical right whereas copyright is a legal right. Author of a written piece, archivist of a documentation (e.g. a filmmaker or cameraperson) have a moral right over the work as the original creator/author of the work. However a legal contract or agreement decides who the copyright owner will be. Simply put: if an employee of an organization is paid by the employer to do a certain original work, then the employee has a moral right over the produced work whereas the employer has the copyright. Most organizations include a blanket agreement with their employees for a right over all the work produced by the employee in the latter's official capacity. Similarly, a commissioned work would be copyrighted by the individual/organization who commissions the work. For instance, a photographer paid to take pictures will have the moral right over the photographs whereas the person/organization who has commissioned the work will be a copyright holder. Please note that copyright is only applicable for the content that is originally created by someone (often referred in the English language as an “author” or a “content producer”). Originality is a grey area. Taking a picture of a natural landscape will result in an "original work" and hence copyrighted whereas taking picture of a painting will not be counted as original work. Look at the examples below to get some insights on copyright. There is no registration required to acquire copyright. Any work with originality becomes a copyrighted work by default. The symbol "©" is usually used to denote a copyrighted work. A copyrighted work goes to Public Domain after the copyright expires. Different countries have different number of years as their respective copyright terms (see list here).

During the production of audio or video, supporting content (e.g. newspaper clippings, stock images/audio/video footages) are generally used. It is a must to acquire permission from the copyright holder for using such work if you are creating something for commercial purposes. Many use such supporting works copyrighted by others under "fair use" in the United States and "fair dealing" in other countries. However, it is a considerable grey area and involves copyright infringement risks.

Open licensing
Open licensing is related to the publication of the recorded content under a license that allows others to openly access, use and reuse recorded content with or without attribution. A set of licenses known as Creative Commons licenses (acronymed as "CC" licenses) are generally used for publishing text, image, other multimedia content like audio and video, and even datasets.

Copyright laws around the world are generally quite oppressive for dissemination of knowledge though they restrict unlawful use of works created by authors. In case of documentation of at-risk languages, non-native archivists must release the work under open licenses (see next sub-section) so that the native speakers and the diaspora of a language can make use of the content that is produced by their fellow community members. It is really important to note that copyright is a highly grey area and it is almost impossible to restrict use of a certain work by others. Unless releasing a certain work might lead to exploitation of the author, use of open licenses is recommended. Native speakers involved in the documentation are duly attributed and them and others from their community have an unrestricted access to the work.

Creative Commons Licenses allow the users to use, make derivative versions or remixes, and redistribute the derivative copies of original works. These license range from the CC0 License (most open and least restrictive) to the CC-BY-NC-ND License (as restrictive as “All Rights Reserved”). CC0 is also equivalent to Public Domain and it allows anyone to commercially use a work without any permission and they do not even have to attribute the author. On the other hand, other Creative Commons Licenses like the CC-BY-SA Licenses encourage attribution to the author and even use a compatable License category i.e. CC-BY-SA.