WHAT'S MINE ISN'T YOURS: Amazon Inspire is sputtering on the launch pad. Just a day after the ecommerce giant released its marketplace for free educational resources, teachers are filing complaints for copyright infringement. The company has removed three copyrighted files after requests from teachers, but two of these three files were present in the screenshot sent to news outlets alongside press releases, according to the New York Times. Amazon told the Times that it was looking into the matter.
One educator, Laura Driscoll of the Social Emotional Learning Workshop, left a comment on our story about Amazon Inspire expressing strong feelings about the theft of materials:
"There a number of resources available on the site which are clear copyright infringement not uploaded by the owners of the material. Rather than open source, it strikes me as a pirated material market that Amazon collects ad revenue and buyer habits on."
Another commenting on our roundup of ISTE 2016 spoke similarly:
"Amazon Inspire has scored a huge failing grade in its roll out to teachers to upload documents for free sharing. There's already been rampant copyright infringement. Participants have been uploading documents that they did not create and do not own the copyright to share among all for free. Apparently there are no safeguards in place to protect the intellectual property of teachers. Amid a deluge of complaints and questions from teachers about this issue, Amazon has remained quiet. My strong suggestion is for Amazon to shut this down until they get it right."
