In chapter six we learn about the challenges of distributed communities. Chapter six puts forth the definition of a distributed community very early: for the purpose of this chapter, we will call distributed any community of practice that cannot rely on face-to-face meetings and interactions as its primary vehicle for connecting members. We then learn several key issues relating to distributed communities: distance, size, affiliation, culture and domain. But, it is affiliation that most stands out to me.Copyright compliance is central to the core of my responsibilities in my current position. Being that I work for a college and that we offer many distance learning courses via the internet, my position is essentially hinged on copyright compliance. In my mind, the staff and faculty who participate in facilitating these courses are communities of practice which in turn make the literacy owners/creators a community of practice of their own. It is the case that I stand the middle ground acting as a means for the information to be passed for instructional purpose from the instructors to the students. In most cases, I digitize much of the content and then post online. Now, chapter six goes on to ask if one group holds greater proper rights over the other. In Shell’s case, it is definitely harder to keep from crossing organizational boundaries. But, in my case, I operate under Fair Use and Copyright Law, which allows for a means to avoid one of the downsides to distributed community. This is talked about in chapter seven under the temptations of ownership whereby the owner/creator of the works may try to pursue full ownership with complete disregard to other communities. So, Fair Use makes it possible for the owner/creator of the works to be protected while extending the benefit of use to students for instructional purpose.
