Yes indeed digitizing and streaming a complete episode would violate copyright law. This is not if you will excuse the pun an "academic" question, there are two recent Federal Court rulings and recent ruling by Library of Congress governing the Digital Millennium Copyright act. In both Google Books and Georgia State cases which were hailed as huge wins for educational institutions the rulings were very specific that only portions of longer works could be considered "fair use". In Google the court clearly stated that because only a portion of the work was accessible , scanning the entire work did not violate "fair use'. GSU was even clearer. While the court ruled that the majority of the works were indeed "fair use" it also ruled that 7 of 48 were NOT "fair use' either because they used too much material or used the heart of the work. Also long forgotten is that when the case was originally filed GSU had been digitizing and uploading complete works but they ceased immediately after the case was filed.
When the DMCA came up for review by the Library of Congress this past November, many restrictions were removed in terms of who could break encryption and for what purpose but a request by academic institutions to be able to digitize and stream entire works was flatly rejected with the following wording * " Audiovisual works, for broad-based space-shifting and format-shifting (declined due to lack of legal and factual support for exemption)"* Not sure if you can get much clearer than that. I think saying one complete episode of a TV show does not violate "fair use" considering the above is simply not accurate The larger issue though is that if you include TV, feature films, educational films and other types of AV there are likely millions of works that are simply not currently available for classroom streaming. A fairly large chunk may be available through commercial sites but an even bigger number are simply unavailable for streaming and many may either be out of print or never have been released on any format other than film. The reasons are various, rights disputes, lack or material or the expense of making good enough copies, cranky rights holders etc. Instructors simply have to look for legal options when material they want is not available to stream because bluntly there is no legal right to stream anything you want or need. If the titles is available via Netflix, Hulu, Amazon or similar I wonder if asking students to pay fo that is any different than having them by books for a class ( which I assume even online students do) I understand librarians want to help instructors get what they want but it is not always possible. Sometimes you just have to tell them to be creative and find either another legal method to view the material or substitute something they can get rights for. Jessica On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 11:28 AM, Griest, Bryan <bgri...@glendaleca.gov> wrote: > I imagine our content providers are saying, "Even one episode (if shown in > its entirety in this manner) violates copyright law." > > -----Original Message----- > From: videolib-boun...@lists.berkeley.edu [mailto: > videolib-boun...@lists.berkeley.edu] On Behalf Of Maureen Tripp > Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2016 7:32 AM > To: Videolib@lists.berkeley.edu > Subject: [Videolib] streaming rights for TV series? > > Would like some feedback on the following scenario: The complete first > season of All in the Family is part of the library's media collection. A > TV writing faculty member wants to show a single episode to students > enrolled in an online course. The faculty member would borrow the DVD from > the Library, take it to media/instructional services and ask that it be > digitized and uploaded to an internal streaming service so that it could be > streamed via a course management system. > > However, if this TV writing faculty member wants to stream more than one > episode, then the fair use analysis would weigh against fair use, and they > would need to seek streaming rights. > > And speaking of streaming rights for TV series, does anyone have any tips > on how to proceed? > Thank you, Collectively Wise Ones. > Maureen > > VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of > issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic > control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in > libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as > an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of > communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video > producers and distributors. > > VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of > issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic > control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in > libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as > an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of > communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video > producers and distributors. > -- Jessica Rosner Media Consultant 224-545-3897 (cell) 212-627-1785 (land line) jessicapros...@gmail.com
VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and distributors.
