[Closed] Do I own my voice and my face?

no I don't thinkyou own your face or voice, but you do own any 'performance'

think about a singer or actor, they have rights over the performance, but they don't own their image so paparazzi can snap away (in public)

I don't know the answer to the question, but home/school contacts are stupid because one party does not have an option to refuse or negotiate its content.

The rules you have posted seem to be pretty well thought out - I am surprised that another colleague will be present in every streamed session.

Do you not have faith in your school's senior leadership team to deal with any potential issues?

TBH I am struggling to see the issue as working via video has become the norm for me but then I am not working with school age children.

To minimise potential issues I would make sure your video backdrop is relatively plain and that your appearance is the same as when you were teaching in person - i.e. no wild lockdown hair or pyjamas.

no I don’t thinkyou own your face or voice, but you do own any ‘performance’

think about a singer or actor, they have rights over the performance, but they don’t own their image so paparazzi can snap away (in public)

Hmmm, not so sure about this, I’m certain that any person who’s image is used without their written permission has the right to demand payment or have the image removed.
Of course the person has rights over their image as well as the performance, their image is just as important as their performance, because people see that just as much as hear them.
Ok, not under UK law, but much of the rest of the world, yes, although there is case law that does cover some aspects of it:
https://www.inbrief.co.uk/human-rights/image-rights/

I have read those terms twice and they basically say you must have suitable place to present from and you must tell someone if you are going off piste. Not a lot about ownership.

This is a hot topic with academics at the moment, especially at universities.

If you are a hot shot teacher who can flood their brains and make them get genus grade just by listening to your recording then why not record it and sack you?

If you say it is because of how you interact with the audience and they are all on mute it seems a challenging defence.

If you are just a mediocre or good teacher then there is even more reason to record and replace you.

Don't worry about who owns your voice, worry about who owns your content.

Something about owning it with Bombers

Neil- I'm not at all sure that a school constitutes a public place. tthew, I agree. They are broken frequently by pupils and to a lesser extent parents, with minimal sanction. However, if I failed to uphold my side...

WCA - and yet if it was as simple as owning one copy of really good content schools would long ago have realised they could take video of one good teacher (you’d only need one per country!) and then use class teachers for discipline and marking - and if the grades were good you would get little complaint from those who matter (parents/voters)

So whilst great content has some value clearly pedagogy is a little more subtle than reciting a perfect lesson. It’s explaining it in different ways for different learners, adapting to the audience, responding to questions, spotting the consistent error in last nights homework and modifying the lesson to fix it, etc.

Ambrose - I doubt you have any real argument that you own the performance (not least because fairly standard employment contracts assign any IP rights arising from your work to the employer). They’ve already included some “rules” precluding students from recording you so anyone Montaging them is breaking a rule but as a general rule parody is not a breach of anyone’s intellectual property. Whilst it would probably be a bit frustrating to end up the joke of the class - if they go to that much effort they’ve paid more attention than most students and during editing will have heard things you said so many times they have probably even learned it!

Your school is trying to embrace 2020 to make your students have a better learning experience, don’t be that teacher sitting in the staff room full of whataboutery - embrace it and be grateful that dozens of other schools are so tangled up in the fear of these questions that they revert to do the minimum.

It is nothing to do with my grades/ competency as a teacher. My concern is that 'erbert will record me, edit this recording in a way that I find unacceptable and then disseminate it.

It has nothing to do with my faith in the SMT. Once 'erbert has done his/ her nasty bit of 'fun it will be out in the WWW forever. Removing this sort of thing is pretty much impossible so I want to try to ensure that it is stopped from happening in the first place.

would it be unreasonable for me to refuse to participate in this form of teaching?

Yes, it would be unreasonable. Adapt to home working. Not unreasonable to ask for more support though.

My concern is that ‘erbert will record me, edit this recording in a way that I find unacceptable and then disseminate it.

A very valid concern. Have you asked your employers how they would handle that? Has that been communicated to parents and pupils?

poly- you make good points that need to be considered when I'm a bit more awake. However, I still do not want to be placed in a position where I can be recorded.

I still do not want to be placed in a position where I can be recorded.

Are phones banned from the school premises in more normal times? Again, your concerns are valid, but how to the school normally deal with covert recording and sharing?

Phones are banned from being used in class but it does happen, the exception is allowing the use of phones for eg research, calculators, specific apps- in other words 'useful' things. If caught misusing the phone the pupil may be placed on a 'phone ban' where they have to hand over their device for safekeeping when they enter the school each morning, to be collected later. A number of these pupils use a second phone to get around this restriction.

It will be impossible to police any 'covert' activities a pupil might be undertaking whilst they are 'Live Learning' out of the classroom. SMT do firefight when they become aware of misuse but does anyone seriously believe that all teenagers will always do the right thing, even when caught bang to rights? They will be in their own homes, with their own devices that quite probably (IME) are not looked over by their parents/ guardians. They will share the results of their fun.

Raise your concerns. There is no 100% safe way to avoid being recorded, your only hope is the threat of proper action from the school. Realistically it is unreasonable to refuse to teach remotely, including use of video links if that’s one of the tools your school is using, at this time… but if your employer won’t act to ease your concern, the next step is your union, they are likely to support you… but only if the school doesn’t take reasonable steps to reassure you… these can only go so far though, the school can’t work miracles, but they must listen to you and do what they can.

It has nothing to do with my faith in the SMT. Once ‘erbert has done his/ her nasty bit of ‘fun it will be out in the WWW forever. Removing this sort of thing is pretty much impossible so I want to try to ensure that it is stopped from happening in the first place.

Surely your school has policies in place for this sort of thing already (ie, 'erbert getting a photo of you,Photoshopping it onto something compromising then sharing it on social media)? Itr's a very similar scenario, it has been going on for a long time already and surely all schools know how to deal with it.

...I still do not want to be placed in a position where I can be recorded.

If someone really wants to record you they will. A phone, a gopro, a buttonhole spy camera that I can buy on the internet for a tenner. I'm not sure why you are particularly paranoid about people doing this from home any more than in the class. I think the most obvious way to record a Teams meeting by screen capture will (or can be set to) alert you to someone recording at the other end.

The school has said they are forbidden from recording. Its difficult to see what more they could do - and you still be able to do your job as effectively.

Frankly, if I was the school management team and you seemed that paranoid about being recorded I'd be a bit worried about what you do in your lessons that could be so career or life ruining, if someone was to record it.

Frankly, if I was the school management team and you seemed that paranoid about being recorded I’d be a bit worried about what you do in your lessons that could be so career or life ruining, if someone was to record it.

Easy @Poly - that's a bit too near pre-emptive victim blaming.

It's not what you do. It's how that's more manipulated/taken out of context , audio added etc etc.

Arguably why do the kids need to see you?

We do alot of online teaching (Albe it of adults) via teams and we do screen share of content with voice.

I don't see what seeing the teacher adds to that.

As a teacher I understand your concerns, but don't think there's a great deal you can do to address them other than the suggestions above re school policy, and making that policy explicit to parents and students. I'd also reiterate the rules at the start of each session (and there's a record of who 'attended' the session built into Teams).

I'm surprised however that videos are expressly not recorded. Our policy (albeit at a sixth form) is that all sessions are recorded so there's a record should there be any issues. Also background blurring is compulsory for anyone with a camera (which requires the desktop version of Teams).

@trail_rat has a good point. Depending on how you've prepped your lessons you can get a cheap (£30?) USB Graphics tablet so you can write on your PowerPoint (or whatever) then no image of you really needed other than the initial "hello everyone,how are you, hope you're all safe,this is the focus of today etc".

Before making a fuss about this publicly I'd strongly suggest you google the "Streisand Effect."

As above. We've been pretty full on and only a couple of times done tutorials where my face appears for a few minutes pretty much all else is focussed on paper or screen.
It doesn't help the "is that what I sound like" paranoia.
One reason I do it this way is I'm not sure heehaw could or would be done about and 'erbert messing with my image and second is I can just chuck a t-shirt on. Whereas a mate at my old school has to do full on lessons with a board and has to be suited and booted including tie.

In answer to your question,

No, you do not have a legal right to have your photo taken except in certain circumstances / protected locations. Satire exists. However, this isn't a question of law, it's a question of school policy.

TBH, I understand your concern, but isn't this a concern in the classroom anyway? Taking a surreptitious photo / video isn't difficult.

Do it like Hambini less the swearing, he does intro's then a PowerPoint which he then scrawl's on as he discusses various points. You could pick up and address comments that students write in, that makes the content more unique to the class being taught

Arguably why do the kids need to see you?

We do alot of online teaching (Albe it of adults) via teams and we do screen share of content with voice.

I don’t see what seeing the teacher adds to that.

Its a subtle thing but I think there is definitely value add in seeing the face of the person talking.
1. Facial expression translates to meaning/nuance that people pick up well.
2. The cues when someone is being asked to contribute or shut up are clearer.
3. There is something more welcoming/reassuring about a face. If its blended learning it may not matter but if its predominantly remote I think it does.
4. Seeing the students will help you understand 1-3 above and see when they are stuck, uncomfortable, bored, etc - from what I can see if the meeting leader (and I assume that translates to training too) turns their camera off, others see it as cue to do the same.

Easy @Poly – that’s a bit too near pre-emptive victim blaming.

No, if there is an issue with what happens normally its nothing to do with "victim blaming". Objecting to technology because of hypothetical issues which exist without the technology seems to be trying to use the technology as an excuse for a bigger issue. I can confidently say that if the tech had existed when I was at school we would probably have recorded a montage of my truely awful english teacher, who finished every sentence with "you know" and who used the same lessons every year regardless of level of student. We might well have made some comedy stuff of others too - I think they'd have found it amusing.

@Poly it's about increasing the ease and number of opportunities.

Your argument is a bit 'if you're not doing anything illegal then you have nothing to worry about'. And we all know where that ends.

Not a teacher here, but I do understand the concern, I do think though the risks of this are no more than if Covid wasn't here, previously they could have obtained a picture of a teacher and photoshopped it onto anything they wished.

Say the worse happens, manipulating video is actually quite hard to do and time consuming, yes a short clip could be taken and slowed and repeated so the voice sounds funny maybe or some 3rd party effect applied. Anything more sinister like when you see videos of Donald Trump singing a recent pop hit take a lot of effort and time.

My only suggestion would to be a bit street smart, maybe loosely script the dialogue you'll use when teaching and scan it for anything which could be considered funny or innuendo?

There are copyright rights in your classes. There are two types of rights - reproduction and moral. Whether those rights are owned by you or your employer depends on what your employment contract says, but usually an employer will own them.

The moral rights would prevent the misrepresentation scenario that you describe.

As a third party you may have the right to enforce an agreement between your employer and a licensee.

Google things like moral rights, employee copyright assignment and Contracts (third parties) Act 1999.

It is nothing to do with my grades/ competency as a teacher. My concern is that ‘erbert will record me, edit this recording in a way that I find unacceptable and then disseminate it.

Mrs Pondo's school did a couple of videos, really just for the teachers to say hello and remind them they're still there and missing the kids (a white lie in a good cause) - inevitably, 'erbert has done a comedic mash-up linking the school to 9/11, etc etc. School I think tried to hush it up rather than nuking from orbit - can't believe they were daft enough to do a second one...

There's the issue. I know of three instances of this sort of silliness two of them would have lead to a sacking if it had been an adult. What surprised me was I was only one of about 4 staff who ever knew and the pupils were never out of school. I'd hate to think how many I don't know about.

Senior management are in "keep it quiet" mode because we issued iPads and everything is perfect. Same as the region wife 96% work uptake through lockdown. I apologised at a meeting as the 4% must all be in my classes.

I have raised the concerns that I (and other staff) have. Senior Management have been really good about it- We only need to do what we are 'comfortable with'. Thank you everyone for your input, even the more challenging replies that have come through.

Turns out I'm now Staff 'Team B' rep. Another string to my bow!

Surprised you have not been doing this already. My partner has been doing it for selected classes since lockdown began.

Depending on how you’ve prepped your lessons you can get a cheap (£30?) USB Graphics tablet so you can write on

This is what my partner does. ~£50 for a large graphics pad ~ A4 size, smaller ones were cheaper but easier with a big work area. Minimal face time needed.

I am not sure you are looking in the right place - IPR should be covered in your contract of employment. Generally, unless there are special clauses your work owns everything you produce on their time.

The agreement you have copied in is just a statement of mutual understanding - not legally enforceable.

I am in a relatively unusual position, having not signed a contract in thirty years. I accept that T's and C's have changed but previously there has been consultation between employers and emlpoyees.