--- Forwarded Message from "Shoaf,Judith P" <[log in to unmask]> ---

>From: "Shoaf,Judith P" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: Language Learning and Technology International Information    Forum
<[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:22:47 -0500
>Subject: #9325 Interesting article on streaming videos online and copyright
>Thread-Topic: #9325 Interesting article on streaming videos online and
copyright
>Thread-Index: AcqfbPZzrhWLHB7ESxqUyiyVVWnnng==
>Accept-Language: en-US
>acceptlanguage: en-US

Karen Tusack provided a link to this article:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/01/26/copyright 

It is getting a lot of discussion on another list I am on, Videolib, for media
librarians, but it is very relevant to LLTI also since "foreign language
professors were among the most frequent users of online film-streaming."


Comments from the other list include:

This is an unexpectedly rancorous encounter. AIME, the organization that is
blowing the whistle on UCLA,
http://www.aime.org/ --is being surprisingly aggressive considering that it is
supposed to be working with educational institutions, not policing them. And
UCLA, in the person of its faculty, is even nastier in claiming its rights.

UCLA could actually have licensed some of the streaming content (for all
students) more cheaply than what it cost to digitize it illegally and distribute
it via course management systems. What they are doing is not only illegal but
impractical

The options which are supposedly unacceptable ("The professors who teach those
courses, she said, have had to choose between eliminating the films from their
syllabuses or telling their students to either purchase their own copies, rent
the titles from a commercial vendor, or check them out of the university's media
lab") are perfectly feasible and were normal 5 years ago. (NB they are normal
right this minute at UF--Judy.)

The unacceptable options really are unacceptable; streaming is needed now and is
part of the assumed educational technology, of the syllabus. Making students go
to library or lab is like making them pump their own drinking water.

___________
My own thought is that we desperately need a central clearinghouse for digital
rights to movies, especially documentaries (which form a special case) but also
for all movies. I think the streaming situation is kind of where course packets
were at the time of the Kinko's suit.

The situation right now is that video streaming rights are quite ill-defined.
There is no standard regarding what distributors should be offering (a
high-quality stream from their own servers? A copy in a digital format suitable
for streaming? Permission to break encoding and digitize and stream from campus
servers?) or what institutions should be paying (a fee per student at the
institution? A fee per student served by a course? A flat fee?). 

Where educational use sits in all this is not crystal clear, either. 

{1} it is legal to use copyrighted materials in face-to-face teaching.

{2} in a film studies course, screenings of entire films, as required viewing,
in the presence of the instructor or a representative are considered legal.

{3} according to the TEACH act, {1} applies to a distance education course
website. It is not clear whether {2} applies, and some advocates of the rights
owners of films say that {2} never applies in a digital environment.

{4} the provisions of {3} do not (or probably do not?) apply to the course
website of a course which has a classroom component. 

{5} it remains illegal to circumvent anti-copying (or regional) encoding in
order to digitize an entire film. (Film studies professors can break encoding on
DVDs belonging to their department in order to digitize clips--there is a
request now under consideration to extend this right to non-film-studies
instructors and university or school libraries).

Judy Shoaf




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