Class Videos and Copyright

The University of California at Los Angeles has stopped allowing faculty members to post copyrighted videos on their course Web sites after the Association for Information and Media Equipment (AIME), a group that protects the copyrights of education media companies, charged the university with violating copyright laws by posting the videos to the password-protected course Web pages without the proper permissions. For additional details, check out the Inside Higher Ed article at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/01/26/copyright (be sure to check the very intriquing comments to the article at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/01/26/copyright#Comments ).

A follow-up article is also available at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/02/04/copyrightredux .

What does this mean? In overly simplistic terms:

• Fair use only allows a portion of a work (video or otherwise) to be used by a not-for-profit educational institution in the classroom.
• The TEACH Act extends the classroom to include any online, password protected course space with access only by currently enrolled students, and access enabled only for a time period appropriate to presentation and discussion of the work.
• The use of the video must be related to specific course objectives (i.e., not just as a time filler).
• As a "general rule", the TEACH Act would only authorize portions of, not entire works. The exception might include showing an entire film in a media studies program, but other criteria must also be met.
• The work (including video) must be legally obtained (e.g., not a pirated copy).
• The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) makes it illegal (even if fair use might otherwise apply) to bypass the encryption on digital media (e.g., CSS encryption codes on region-encoded DVDs) in order to create a streaming media version. For example, if you digitize and bypass the encryption on a DVD to create a streaming video clip, the issue of fair use is moot.
• The TEACH Act does not extend fair use to works primarily produced or marketed for in-class use in the digital distance education market.

JCCC has licenses with several companies to provide video access for instructional purposes, including Ambrosia Video, Journal of Chemical Education (ACS) demonstrations, American History in Video (streaming video collection includes newsreels from 1929 through the 1960s plus hours of documentaries from the History Channel and more), Counseling and Therapy in Video, Dallas TeleLearning Digital Resource Repository, and the INTELECOM Online Resources Network.

Members of AIME, the group that has threatened UCLA with a copyright infringement suit) are listed online ( http://www.aime.org/corporate-directory.php ).

As background for this increasingly important area of media usage, check out “Video Use and Higher Education: Options for the Future” at http://library.nyu.edu/about/Video_Use_in_Higher_Education.pdf .

NEED VIDEO RESOURCES FOR SPRING 2010?

Are you looking for a short video clip to supplement your instruction or reinforce a concept? Are you looking for ways to reinforce in-class or online class lectures?

Ambrose Video has over 1000 Educational DVDs in their collection including science and history topics. New releases include "21st Century Turning Points in U.S. History (2000-2009)", "America's National Monuments: The Geologic West", "A History of Chinese American Achievement", "When the Water Tap Runs Dry" (a look at the challenges faced in a climate changed world) and new Ancient History DVDs. Ambrose’s video collection is designed to provide clips for educators to deliver digitally in the classroom (face-to-face or online). That means they’re available for download or in a streaming format.

JCCC will license 50 hours of video from Ambrose that can be used in the classroom or online. The same 50 hours of video will be available to students via the JCCC Library’s web site (requires use of a proxy server).

If you're interested in seeing the variety of video clips available, visit Ambrose Video. Here are some helpful steps you:

1. Go to http://www.ambrosevideo.com
2. You will find the tutorial helpful (see the link on the right of Ambrose Video’s home page or at http://www.ambrosedigital.com/content/view/102/160/).
3. When done watching the tutorial, click the Home tab to return to the Ambrose Video home page.
4. Type a key word in the search box (after the magnifying glass icon on upper right side of the page) that represents the video you seek; such as, “history” or “astronomy” or “law” and press the Enter key.
5. A list of videos that match the keyword will appear on the screen.
6. Click the title and the next screen will show “Programs and individual clips.” You’ll see a sample clip at the top of the screen.
7. While you cannot view each clip, you can mouse over the “I” or Information icon (that precedes each title) to see more information on the clip.
8. When you find clips that you might be able to use, make a note of the clip (such as “1754 - The Albany Plan of Union”) or the name of the entire program (such as “18th Century Turning Points in U.S. History”).