VIII. Find the key sentences in the text and use them in your retelling.

IX. Internet Research Project New Communications Technologies

If you want to do a web search on new communications technologies, what keywords would you enter in a search engine? What keywords may be misleading in your search and why?

satellite * technology * progress * satellite TV * communications technologies * communication * new technologies * electronic media * mass media * world of technology * wireless technology

If you want, you can try using these words in your search and see what results you get.

Task I. Study summaries of web sites devoted to new communications technologies. You can get such summaries once you type "communications technologies" as a key phrase in your web search. What issues connected with communications technologies are brought up on each site? Can you group the issues? What are the most common issues addressed? What are the least frequent issues addressed?

The table below will help you complete the task.

Most commonly raised issues connected with communications technologies	Least frequently raised issues connected with communications technologies

1. new communication technologies their history and social influence

newcomm.library.wisc.edu/ - Similar pages

2. A Year Spilling Over With New Communications Technologies

The one other regulatory issue that has seen widespread publicity concerning new communications technologies in 2003 is the question of whether VoIP should ... www.praxagora.com/andyo/ar/communi-cations_cornucopia.html - 14k - Cached -Similar pages

3. Technology Futures, Inc.: Communications Reference Book: Computer ...

Now that we have entered the 21st cen­tury, we see new communication techno­logies being introduced at an astonishing rate. Making sense of these technologies ... www.tfi.com/pubs/crb.html - 14k -Cached - Similar pages

4. Information and Communication Technologies: Topic

Information and Communication Technology for Development ... Linux servers, digital storage, personal digital assistants and new portable consumer products....

www.oecd.org/topic/0,2686,en_2649_ 37441_l_l_l_l_37441.00.html - 75k -Cached - Similar pages

5. International Conference on New Technologies in Education ICTE2002

AND COMMUNICATION TECH­NOLOGIES IN EDUCATION Seville, Andalusia, (Spain) from 29 November to 2 December 2006. Deadline for Abstracts Submission.

www.formatex.org/icte2002.html - 3k -Cached - Similar pages

Task II. Split into groups of three. Each student in a small group will have one topic for individual web search and study. Student A - topic A, Student B - Topic B, Student C - Topic C.

Topic A: History and social influence of new communications technologies.

Topic B: Conferences and congresses on new communications technologies.

Topic C: Application of new communica­tions technologies in education.

TEXTS FOR DISCUSSION

Part I

Surreal case of the Dalí images and a battle over artistic licence

Glasgow issues legal threats to stop poster firms and rock band illegally copying prized painting

For more than half a century, Salvador Dalí's dark and dramatic rendering of Christ's crucifixion has been regarded as his finest religious painting, attracting millions of visitors to an apparently modest municipal art gallery in Glasgow.

But now, 57 years after being bought direct from the artist by Glasgow's city fathers, the painting is at the centre of a legal investigation which may yet snare a death metal band from Alsace in France, ashtray manufacturers, and poster-makers in the US, Britain, Italy and Spain.

The council believes it has been losing tens of thousands of pounds in unpaid licensing fees and royalties a year from unauthorised copies of Christ of St John of the Cross, which was bought for £8,200 and now valued at more than £60m.

Lawyers acting for Glasgow city council have drawn up a hit-list of 50 companies, manufacturers and artists selling hand-painted copies, who are suspected of illegally copying it. Warnings have been issued to 25 firms and individuals across the world - some wrongly claiming to have the council's permission to reuse the image - to "cease and desist" or face legal action.

After intellectual property experts at Burness, the Glasgow-based law firm hired by the council, have finished with the largest suppliers of unapproved copies, the French rock band Mercyless may be next in line. The band's 1992 album Abject Offering, which features such tracks as Unformed Tumours and Burned at the Stake, has a cropped version of the painting on its cover. A council spokesman said the band was refused permission to use the painting but claimed on the album cover it was authorised to do so.

Archie Graham, the council's executive member for culture and sport, said this was another good reason for keeping a close eye on its reproduction: its religious subject matter and significance had to respected. "It's an issue of the image being reproduced in an appropriate manner. We don't want to see tacky goods having the image on them."

In a highly unusual move, Dalí gave Glasgow sole copyright to the painting when he sold it in 1951. Apparently in financial difficulties, Dalí initially asked for £12,000 but after some hard bargaining by Tom Honeyman, the director of Glasgow Art Gallery at the time, he sold it for nearly a third less and signed a letter to the city in 1952 ceding copyright.

Coming only seven years after the end of the second world war, the purchase proved extremely controversial. The protests against its acquisition - on the grounds that the money would be better spent on the college and the city's own residents - even attracted the support of students at Glasgow's School Of Art.

In fact, the painting cost the city's rate-payers nothing: it was bought by a fund set up using the profits of the Kelvingrove International Exhibition of 1901 to buy works of art for the city's museums.

It has been in the news ever since. In 1961, the stark image was attacked by a man with mental health problems who slashed it with a stone and a knife. In the early 80s, someone shot at its protective Perspex cover with an airgun.

Yet Honeyman is now regarded as a visionary and a hero, said Graham. The council estimates that its licensing has earned the authority at least £50,000 in royalties as well as shifting the gallery's own Dalí postcards and placemats - repaying its original cost many times over.

Christ of St John of the Cross is also Kelvingrove's greatest asset, helping make the gallery and museum Scotland's most popular visitor attraction and putting it 14th in a world ranking of major galleries, ahead of the Uffizi in Florence, Tate Britain in London, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Since it reopened after a £35m refurbishment in 2006, Kelvingrove has had 5 million visitors.

The council now earns about £2,000 each year from approved reproductions but its legal advisers estimate that unauthorised copies are losing the city well over five times that sum, thanks largely to the proliferation of mail order businesses selling posters online.

"At the time, they argued the money could have been better spent," said Graham. "It was a different era then, but the city fathers stuck to their guns, and we're glad that they did."

Colin Hulme, the intellectual property lawyer handling the case for the council, said their initial investigations had found that a handful of printing firms were responsible for a large proportion of the illicit copies. They may be asked or forced to repay royalties going back some years, he said.

Some firms even claimed to have authority to reprint Christ of St John of the Cross from the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation in Figueres, Spain, which oversees copyright for most Dalí works. But that claim was firmly denied yesterday by a spokeswoman for the foundation. "It's a very rare case that Dalí sold the work and the rights," she said. "But I can confirm that the owner of the painting does also own the copyright."

From The Times

January 28, 2009