Sorry this took so long but been having a bunch of computer problems. Instead of trying to reply to bits of this I’m going to try to be more comprehensive.
First thing is to understand a few things. The streaming aspect is far less important than where you are transfering it from and to. You have far more flexibility within the building then you do publicly over the internet. Just as an individual for personal use has more flexibility than a public corporation. This is where Areo tried to slide in and the Court disagreed with them. And libraries tend to fall somewhere in there having special exemptions to copyright granted by Congress but the laws don’t cover modern technical details. As long as you act in good faith you or your library will not get sued for two reasons. Firstly standard operating procedure is to send a cease and desist letter. So if you do skirt the limits realize it can happen and comply and then tell us what you did and what it said so the broader library community can decide where they stand. Secondly one of the last things a major content company wants is to sue a library. One thing that was clearly shown during surveys of people over the last few years is that while lots of people don’t actively use their library the public support for them is still very high. Thirdly they don’t want to sue a library because if they lose every library in the country will know what it can and cannot implement. And if they win they will face a legislative fight to expand what libraries can do. They are served far better by there not being clear rules, especially because librarians fear far more than they should. Part of this sort of thing in the long run is about managing bandwidth, with streaming video sucking up more and more bandwidth finding ways of controlling it will be useful. Luckily Netflix has been working on an appliance to help everyone with this but I’d imagine it will be a few years before it gets down to a library level unless someone comes up with a completely open source solution we can implement ourselves. Someone mentioned network TV which brings up the really interesting space. There is an argument to be made that providing access to access to content freely available to the public. While you clearly could not stream it to other locations the software and hardware is readily available. So the question is does anyone know of any court cases or LOC/copyright guidelines from back in the days of VCR about libraries recording shows on video tape and providing access to those tapes. The other thing to consider as a community is developing a catalog of videos that would be good to keep on servers in libraries that can be downloaded so they are more readily accessible without killing the libraries bandwidth. Brent Sent from Windows Mail From: Cornel Darden Jr. Sent: Tuesday, December 2, 2014 8:59 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Hello, Is streaming (viewing online) copyrighted material illegal for individuals. According to the copyright.gov website this seems to be completely legal for the viewer when there isn't a copy of the work on the viewers computer. It only mentions hosting streams as being a misdemeanor, even if there isn't any profit. This is becoming a huge issue as more content consumers become cord cutters. Has any librarians faced these questions? I am planning on implementing Kodi in my library, but will only make public domain material accessible. Kodi provides an excellent user interface for organizing and viewing public domain material. Thanks, Cornel Darden Jr. MSLIS Library Department Chair South Suburban College 7087052945 "Our Mission is to Serve our Students and the Community through lifelong learning." Sent from my iPhone
