A Meet the barrister, listen in full, note observations and suggestions, regrets for the unexpected surprise, explain what's going to happen next, thanking them for drawing attention to the situation.

B Meet all involved in the teaching of the VLE, explain what's happening and what are the likely next steps and what to expect.

C Seek advice: from colleagues managing the VLE about what internal policies there are, are they custom and practice, or written and published.

D Seek advice: from colleagues within the organisation who are responsible for the company's compliance with data protection legislation and an independent audit of the materials in the VLE.

E Ask how did this happen? (1) were VLE management and staff correctly informed and supported in understanding copyright in the context of educational programmes and commercial training course? (2) are the IT and operational systems working correctly to aid in the fair use of materials?

F Ask for input from the eLearning community in the legal territory or territories involved - if the company is in Ireland and students are from overseas, is the problem more complicated?

G Advise: immediately, for the short term, all teaching staff about basic procedures to be followed to respect the levels of access permitted by copyright holders through re-publication and distribution attached.

H Advise: immediately, for the short term, all management and staff who in the company or elsewhere can be directly contacted with a query.

I Advise: immediately, for the short term, all enrolled students of their obligations in line with the ethos and legal obligations of the company providing the programme/course.

J Long term: put a clear policy and practices in place and make this effective by actively introducing and refreshing people on their obligations, right across management and teaching staff.

K Long term: aim to lead on promoting the value of open scholarship for learners outside academia, and promote the value of post graduate study through the Professional PhD. 

L Outcome 1: everybody learns; barrister is 'contained'.

M Outcome 2: commission a tailored eLearning Short Course on 'Copyright and OERs in Context' for anyone who'll be teaching on the company CPD course.

Scalar is described on the website of The Alliance for Networking visual culture as:

"A free, open source authoring and publishing platform that’s designed to make it easy for authors to write long-form, born-digital scholarship online. Scalar enables users to assemble media from multiple sources and juxtapose them with their own writing in a variety of ways, with minimal technical expertise required. Scalar is a semantic web authoring tool"

See: https://scalar.usc.edu/scalar/

They have showcase projects on the website, however this is a better example, especially see the way the captions/citation tool works to deal with the issue of republishing and distribution of copyright material.

See: http://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/how-to-see-palestine/index


LINKS Ireland:
General. Legislation in Ireland. Published by the Attorney General:
Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000
Relevant to Intellectual Property Issues and Design Protection:
Irish Patents Office
Policy:
Intellectual Property Unit (Dept. of Enterprise, Jobs & Innovation)
Very good information on context:
Irish Copyright Licensing Agency
Membership organisation raising issues and awareness:
Copyright Association of Ireland
The Legal News section is good for checking in on what current issues are, current cases in law etc:
Irish Film & Television Network ‘Copyright Guide’Quite interesting insight into how tenuous unpublished ownership can be:
Poetry Ireland
Absolutely retail focussed, as was the history of the organisation, but useful to look from another perspective on the issue of public domain:
Irish Music Rights Organisation
The licensing regarding use of material/films in traiing programmes is quite relevant:
Motion Picture Licensing Corporation
Excellent introduction into the rights management practices in commercial news media:
Newspaper Licensing Ireland

LINKS  International:
Good at up to date events and news and debates:
International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations
Intellectual Property issues in a global frame, broadens some of the particular issues in OERs:
World Intellectual Property Organisation

If your online course is to consist only of work created by you (lecture notes, reading list, etc.) there is no need for further action with regard to checking copyright. There are some grey areas, the most notable being SLIDES from your own lectures. If the slides contain only material for which you hold the copyright (text written by you, images you have created, e.g. diagrams, photos . etc.) they can simply be added to your online course. If they do contain any third party material (the most common culprit being images) you will need to obtain copyright permission to use materials which belong to other individuals or organisations.
Practical help: See below for more information on how to obtain copyright and also the section on images for advice on where to find 'free' images.

Copyright of your original material is conferred automatically – you don't have to apply or register for it. You are entitled to prevent unauthorised copying of your work but this is difficult to enforce.

The Irish Copyright Act stipulates that the author is the first owner of the work except where a work is made during the course of employment. In this case the employer if first owner, subject to any agreement to the contrary.

Retain a paper copy /manuscript of your work, and state on it that you are asserting your ownership rights. 

Place the copyright symbol ©, year of publication and name of copyright owner on your paper manuscript. E.g. 'Copyright © 2014 John Smith'