English Course Copyright

[Jim Zorn]

Jurisdiction

Idaho

I used to teach English in China and created my own course by taking topics from an existing course and writing my own exercises for each topic.

When I was just working one-on-one with students, this wasn't a problem, but now, I'm thinking of putting the course on the Youtube. Would that be legal?

Also, the original course was based on "immersion training", that is, the language was only in English, while my course is bilingual, having language in both English and Chinese.

There were eighty lessons in the course and I've used topics from each lesson, but with my own wording. Here are some examples from the original course and my course. Is this legal?

Original course:

The boy catches the ball.

The girl is going to catch the ball.

The man catches a fish.


My course:

31. Catches

What does he catch?
他抓住什么？

He catches the ball.
他抓住球。


32. Catches ball

What is she going to catch?
她打算抓住神们？

She is she going to catch the ball.
她打算抓住球？


33. Dog caught

What did the dog catch?
狗抓住了什么？

The dog caught the ball.
狗抓住了球。

 

[adjusterjack]

Tough question and I don't have a answer for you.

On the one hand those phrases seem too generic to have copyright protection.

On the other hand, you've appropriated somebody else's work and disguised it as your own.

I suggest that you have an intellectual property attorney review your course and advise you.

Understand, though, that being right doesn't prevent somebody from suing you. It just gives you a defense for which you could spend tens of thousands on litigation.