--- Forwarded Message from Mysterious Stranger <[log in to unmask]> ---

>Date:         Thu, 9 Oct 2008 01:09:16 -0400
>From: Mysterious Stranger <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: #8965.1 Streaming movies on campus
>To: [log in to unmask]
>cc: Mysterious Stranger <[log in to unmask]>

I won't say that we do stream feature films to students, but I also won't
say that we don't.

- Insert wink and nod -

However, if I WERE going to go about such an endeavor, here is how I would
do it so as to provide a plausible case under the current grayness of Fair
Use and Teach Act (institutions outside the US may operate under different
laws)...

I'll be verbose with this, since I'm feeling wordy...and stuff...feel free
to ignore the bits you know, or correct me if I get anything wrong.

The basic premise is this: for students to be able to view the video, and
not be able to download it, it has to be streamed using something like
Darwin Streaming Server (the open source version of Quicktime Streaming
Server), or Flash Media Server (which also has an open-source project called
Red5). Windows has a streaming media server too, but it doesn't play nice
with Mac, so nuts to them!

Anyway, unless you encode the video with some sort of DRM, which is more
complicated than you have to make it, streaming the video through a server
app is the way to go. This way the files can sit inside a non-web-accessible
folder, with the streaming app serving them up on request. Can the videos
still theoretically be copied using this method? Yes, unfortunately, but it
makes it that much harder, and depending on how you go about it, obscurity
of the source URL can work to a sufficient degree.

The big choice then: Flash or Quicktime (via RTSP streaming protocol)? 

Ideally, Flash would be a hands-down winner, with its wide browser support.
Unfortunately, Flash video sucks. Unless someone can point me to some magic
ffmpeg settings and show me a nice looking SWF that isn't grainy and over
800mb for a feature film, well, Quicktime it is.

We may or may not have used Darwin Streaming Server to stream H.264 MP4
encoded files over RTSP. Those files, after hinting (need that for the
streaming server to serve them up) may or may not have been pretty darn good
looking at 800mb and 640x480 max dimensions.

Now that we know the delivery method, should we ever decide that this is a
good idea, we need to set up some door men so only the cool kids can get
into Club Awesome.

There are various methods to go about this. The best way would be to find
out how your institution handles logins on campus (do they have a central
server using LDAP or Kerberos, etc?) and plug into that.

I'll tell ya what, if I were doing this (and I'm not saying I am, currently,
right now, as we speak, of course) I would get my IT comrades to filter the
user info from our Blackboard system. They'd give me a few flat-file CSVs
with username, id, course info, enrollment, etc that my CMS (housed and
otherwise cared for/fed in the Language Lab) would inhale and create user
groups with. Then you could, in theory, limit access to the Chinese films to
only those students taking Chinese courses. You could be as strict or as
loose as you want with that.

The beauty of this from a legal standpoint is that if I were to go about
creating such a system it would be even more restricted than if a student
came to the lab and checked out a video, since if they could check out any
video they want, no matter what language they are taking, and depending on
lending policies, even take it home and copy it there.

So, what would, say, the campus library staff have to say about my
theoretical setup? They'd probably be aghast, but then, we are a small
outfit that works independently of the library here. Again, the big thing
here is that this system is in some ways more secure than lending out
physical copies. Regardless, it DOES require making digital copies of
copyrighted works, which, even under the umbrella of Fair Use and TEACH Act
probably doesn't sit well in the collective hive-mind of the teeth-gnashing
leviathan called the MPAA.



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