[Proposal] Copyright Agreement Acceptance Process for Content Upload in Open edX Studio #465
Description
Abstract
Implement a core feature in Open edX Studio that requires users to accept a copyright agreement before uploading content to Files & Uploads. This leverages and extends the existing Agreements framework to improve institutional compliance, reduce legal risk, and align Open edX with competitor platforms like Canvas and Blackboard.Proposal Summary
Open edX lacks a built-in mechanism to ensure users acknowledge copyright responsibilities before uploading content, leaving institutions exposed to legal and financial risk. This proposal introduces a lightweight, reusable acknowledgment step in Studio, enforced via a banner interface and tracked through the platform’s existing Agreements system.
The proposed solution is simple for authors, configurable for administrators, and core to the platform (not a plugin). It supports compliance across institutions, improves auditability, and lays the groundwork for future policy gates such as DEI acknowledgments or research consent.
Detailed Product Proposal
Context & Background (in brief, if a Product Proposal is linked above)
As Open edX is increasingly adopted by large institutions and enterprises to create and manage high volumes of content, these organizations face significant and escalating legal and financial liability from copyright-infringing materials, often uploaded unintentionally by instructors or staff. Under the principle of vicarious liability, institutions are legally responsible for content created by their employees, even when the infringement is unintentional. Yet the current platform offers no scalable way to warn users, require acknowledgment of copyright obligations, or log compliance actions. This compliance blind spot is especially problematic in Studio’s self-service authoring environment, where content creation happens at scale without any enforceable oversight, automated safeguards, or legal attestation mechanisms, leaving institutions exposed to sizeable financial penalties, course takedowns, and reputational risk under both national copyright laws and international frameworks like the Berne Convention. The risk is amplified in high-enrollment courses or MOOCs where unauthorized content is publicly accessible.
Scope & Approach (in brief, if a Product Proposal is linked above)
Value & Impact (in brief, if a Product Proposal is linked above)
Milestones and/or Epics
TBC
Named Release
Unsure
Timeline (in brief, if a Product Proposal is linked above)
TBC
Proposed By
OpenCraft
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