There are a number of movements in place to actually limit the amount of copyright restrictions on resources for educators. Some of these include

OpenCourseWare

OpenCourseWare (OCW), otherwise known as an open learning initiative, is growing in prevalence in the United States as well as globally and is part of a larger open educational resources movement. Institutions involved in OpenCourseWare initiatives in the United States include founder Massachusetts Institute of Technology OCW, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health OCW, Carnegie Mellon OpenLearningInitiative, Tufts Univeristy OCW, University of California - Irvine , University of Norte Dame OCW , Utah Valley State College OCW and Utah State Univeristy OCW among others nationally and globally (Opencourseware Consortium , 2006; OpenCourseWare Finder, 2007). There are other initiatives as well that combine resources from various institutions such as Sharing of Free Intellectual Assets (Sofia) and Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (Merlot).

Creative Commons

Creative commons is a means for authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry -- from no restrictions to some rights reserved to all rights reserved. If offers alternatives. Learn more about Creative Commons.