<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Dear colleagues,<div><br></div><div>On Tuesday, the *New York Times* published an article about new ways that college students cheat and some defensive techniques that colleges and universities are now employing. The article mentioned a website I hadn't heard of called coursehero.com, which the reporter called "a kind of Napster of homework sharing, where students from more than
3,500 institutions upload papers, class notes and past exams."</div><div><br></div><div>I was naturally curious and found that Course Hero was selling access to about a dozen documents written by one of my colleagues. When a representative of Course Hero was contacted, she removed the documents, and claimed that their terms of use prohibit students from uploading what they have no permission to upload. (Never mind that the site seems entirely designed to allow students to share other peoples' materials.)</div><div><br></div><div>I bring this up because some of you might want see whether your materials are being shared (or rather sold) against your will. There is a "contact us" link at the bottom of the Course Hero page, where you can find an e-mail address to contact Course Hero and file a complaint. The key to getting material taken down is:</div><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">1. State that you have a "good faith belief" that posting this material has not been authorized by the copyright owner;</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">2. State under penalty of perjury (make this explicit) that the information in your letter is accurate and you are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.</div><div><br></div></div><div>No matter how much we might believe in internet freedom and/or desire public domain teaching materials, we all work too hard to have our materials stolen and then sold behind our backs.</div><div><br></div><div>With best regards,</div><div><br></div><div>Michael</div><div><br></div><div>P.S. Here is a link to the *NY Times* article: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/education/06cheat.html?src=me&ref=general">http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/education/06cheat.html?src=me&ref=general</a></div><div><br></div><br><div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div>-----------------------------------------------------------</div><div>Michael Buchler</div><div>Associate Professor of Music Theory</div><div>Florida State University College of Music</div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Lucida Grande'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br></span></font></span></span></div></body></html>