Day 2: Copyright

Today, I worked my way through an online tutorial on copyright; another thing I didn’t think I’d be looking at in Med School!

So what is copyright? Why does it apply to me on this SSC?

Copyright is “a form of intellectual property, applicable to any expressed representation of a creative work” (according to my tutorial). This means that I cannot use any images, music, video footage or other intellectual material in my project, that are not licensed under Creative Commons or in the public domain, without potentially having to pay or request permission for them; I always knew this in the back of my head, it’s one of the reasons we’re not allowed to record lectures without the lecturer giving their express permission, but I had never given it much thought really before.

Creative Commons (CC) is something I’ve never heard before but it allows people to create resources and allow people to reuse, modify or share their resources, with conditions attached; not all CC images are allowed to be modified for example.

Google Image – I’ve been doing it wrong my whole life!

How do I go about finding these resources that people have so kindly made free? I have never searched for anything like this before; until 5 minutes ago, I didn’t know what a copyright license truly was…so I start by typing in “brain/heart” to Google Image, as my tutorial suggests and what do I get? A long list of at least 150+ images. How many of these are not copyrighted, however…?

answer; 14. Approximately 10%, maybe a little bit either side of that. I’m in shock. How many times in the past, in high school and even potentially in university (although with referencing I hope in University, to have mitigated it), have I used a copyright image, without realising, in an essay or powerpoint? Why don’t they teach everyone the basics of these things at least once? The image below is one that I have found that is licenced as free to use, share or modify;

this is the somatotopic map of the cerebral cortex, also known as the homunculus, which shows how much of your brain’s processing power is devoted to certain parts of your body.

The next thing I was asked to consider was filtering for images without a background; transparency – a pet hate of mine is a slide all one colour and a background on an image an entirely different (and ridiculous) colour sitting on it so this is something I will definitely be using in the future. However when filtered for transparency and licensed to share and modify, I am down to only two images so while it would make me much happier to have a background that is all the same, there is obviously a trade-off to be had as images that are both freely available, and transparent, or even a certain colour I’m sure if I filtered the background different, are few and far between.

Consent for Clinical Images

Images of patients can complicate copyright further as it brings in the issue of consent and permission, as well as maintaining confidentiality. Below is a list of things I think are important to include in a written consent form for use of clinical images;

• Information for the patient as to what will be involved;
  • No name/DoB/identifying features will be identified
  • Only the pathology/rash etc. will be shown to students
  • Who the images will be shown to (e.g. medical students/nursing students/dentists/post graduate trainees/registered nurses etc.)
  •  How will the image be stored – physical copy, anonymised digital copy in a secure server etc.
  • How will the image be accessed; online (open access or password protected), in lectures, by email, on an overhead projector etc.
• Can their consent be withdrawn?
  • I believe that it is important for the patient to understand that consent is fluid and therefore may be withdrawn if;
    • there a provision for this  – e.g. does each photograph have a unique iD number stored separately and securely which can be used to identify a patient’s photo and remove it from use?
    • They should also be informed that should there be a provision for revoking consent, they do not need to explain why consent has been withdrawn.
• Do they understand everything they have been told or read and understand that this is voluntary and therefore they may exercise their right to refuse?