The University of California at Los Angeles has stopped posting copyrighted videos on course Web sites after complaints from an educational-media trade group, leaving other colleges worried about repercussions.
The Association for Information and Media Equipment contacted the university in the fall, alleging that it had violated copyright laws by letting instructors use the videos, which were accessible only to students then enrolled in specific courses. The university temporarily stopped using online videos beginning this semester and is negotiating with the trade group.
Current copyright laws allow “fair use” exceptions for teaching and research, and one specific exception in copyright law lets instructors use legally made audiovisual material in face-to-face teaching activities. The university argues that posting the material to password-protected sites falls under these exceptions and that technology is “a critical component of our instructional mission here and at a lot of other universities,” according to a spokesman, Phil Hampton.
But Allen Dohra, president of AIME, said posting those videos isn’t protected and hurts the people who produce them. Mr. Dohra said his organization had three other institutions it needed to look into, although he declined to give their names.
“Every time there is a format change, the film producer has to make large capital expenditures to bring his collection up to date,” Mr. Dohra said. “The customers want our product, enough of them prove that by stealing it, but they seem to have a problem with the companies recovering those capital expenditures. That is exactly the case in the UCLA matter.”
The university could also cite the Teach Act, which allows limited use of copyrighted materials for online education, said Steven J. McDonald, general counsel for the Rhode Island School of Design. Mr. McDonald said that although the act constricts how much of a video can be posted, institutions could argue that using 100 percent of the video is necessary for the course. Mr. Dohra disputes the applicability of the Teach Act, in part because UCLA used some full-length films.
Steven L. Worona, director of policy and networking programs at Educause, said the higher-education-technology organization had already fielded calls from universities concerned by the UCLA case. He said institutions should wait to see what happens at UCLA before they take any action.
Mr. Worona said that posting class materials online was fairly common in higher education and that stopping institutions from posting online without paying more money could have broad implications.
“If it becomes a requirement nationwide for streaming media to be limited to face-to-face synchronous presentation, it will be more expensive for campuses, more expensive for students, and lose many of the benefits that digital networking offers to classroom instruction,” he said.
Patricia Aufderheide, director of American University’s Center for Social Media, disagrees with what she says is UCLA’s decision to negotiate instead of fight, but understands why the institution did that. Universities have not joined together to find a way to deal with similar claims from media companies, she said.
Ms. Aufderheide, a professor of film and media studies who uses film clips for all of her classes, worries about challenges to universities’ ability to post videos.
“I think this is something that really sends chills down your spine as a teacher,” she said.
Instructors at UCLA are finding alternatives to using copyrighted videos online, said Robin L. Garrell, a chemistry professor and chair of the Academic Senate there. Some tell students to use Netflix or Amazon for movies, and others have modified their curricula based on what material is easily available.
Ms. Garrell and Patricia O’Donnell, manager of the university’s Instructional Media Collection and Services, declined to give their opinions on the case. But Ms. O’Donnell did say that the discussion about posting videos has been beneficial.
“I think it’s definitely on everyone’s mind,” Ms. O’Donnell said. “I think the challenge [by AIME] has just sort of brought it to the forefront.”
Mr. Dohra said he felt that his group had been accused of bullying the university, and that a number of professors and librarians had been unfairly critical in online comments.
“The copyright laws were attacked as antiquated, and AIME was castigated for standing up for its members’ rights,” Mr. Dohra said. “I find it all strange, especially coming from those who should consider intellectual-property rights the most sacred of rights.”
21 Responses to UCLA Pulls Videos From Course Sites After Copyright Challenge
aimeorg - February 2, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Mr. Worona states, “If it becomes a requirement nationwide for streaming media to be limited to face-to-face synchronous presentation, it will be more expensive for campuses, more expensive for students, and lose many of the benefits that digital networking offers to classroom instruction.”When you pay for something instead of just taking it, yeah it usually costs more. Truth is though, in the matter of UCLA that wasn’t necessarily the case. UCLA was streaming full length Shakespeare plays, some up to 3 hours long. They were making copies of DMCA protected DVDs and streaming them, for a semester, to the students of a requesting professor’s class. UCLA could have purchased one year licenses to these plays, for unlimited simultaneous use by all faculty and students served by their campus, for a mere $24.95. They probably spent three times that amount in man hours every time they added a title to their system and then subsequently removed it. And who knows what they’ll pay in legal fees now.The “benefits that digital networking offers to classroom instruction” are not lost to the educational community by copyright compliance. Many, if not most, AIME corporate members have invested heavily into streaming technologies and offer those services at reasonable prices. Many AIME Institutional members have invested in these technologies through the proper distribution channels. You have educational film producers creating product specifically designed for the classroom and making it available in a new technology. They are supported by a large group of educators and librarians who understand the need for digital access to this material. As with most new technologies and formats, prices usually come down as more users join the mix. It is the way it should work. Allen DohraPresident AIME
catlkelley - February 3, 2010 at 7:08 am
I am actually quite surprised that UCLA would allow this practice. I head a teaching and learning with technology office, and we specifically do not allow our instructors to post full-length videos because of concern over copyright compliance. We counsel them on alternative sources of video material that they can use with confidence.Our state has a very large and ambitious project to work with film vendors to acquire streaming rights to educational films at reasonable consortium prices. The same project also provides high-quality streaming access to locally-produced material. This keeps everybody happy – prices are low, quality is excellent, and everything is legal. I think this is a good model.
slworona - February 3, 2010 at 9:41 am
@aimorg: This is not about “paying” vs “taking”. It’s about whether copyright law does and should erect a wall around the physical classroom, insisting that students inside the wall may view instructional materials that those same students, in the same class, are denied from outside the wall.
koritzdg - February 3, 2010 at 10:21 am
Mr Dohra’s tone is unfortunate. He apparently believes this is a question of moral right vs moral wrong, righteous property owner versus thief. This “us (the good) versus them (the bad)” attitude is just plain ugly. The question at issue is how to provide quality education that is economically sustainable. (Conclusions we might agree on may well require changes in the law). It ought to be a respectful discussion of a difficult and complex issue, within the educational community. And it is a complex issue. Educational institutions, k-12 and higher ed., are under intense pressure to lower costs to students and taxpayers. Congress has taken actions explicitly designed to lower textbook prices, for example. It may well be that the least-cost solution will involve minimizing the use of copyritghted material. This is probably not the solution Mr Dohra and his organization would favor.
aimeorg - February 3, 2010 at 10:27 am
You can argue whether copyright should erect a wall but I don’t think that you can argue whether it does. I have never heard of a walled classroom that was used to show a complete 3 hour play. I have never heard of a walled classroom that could hold an unlimited number of students. I have never heard of a walled classroom where students had access to the programming available on a DVD, while that same DVD was being used somewhere else on campus. And even in the walled classroom, students are subject to limitations on the instructional materials available. The teacher can’t make a DVD from the VHS tape he owns.No one is trying to place limitations on the access of materials. Streaming licenses are available, they often provide access that a 100 DVDs of a program couldn’t, and they are often reasonable.
spc09lib - February 3, 2010 at 11:34 am
“The question at issue is how to provide quality education that is economically sustainable” (4. koritzdg). While that is the concern of UCLA and other institutions, it is not the question here. The question is are schools (at all levels from k-12 through graduate programs) abusing fair use and/or outright stealing material? The owners of copyright protected material have a right to the protection of and compensation for the use of their material. As noted by others, licenses to use the material are very reasonable and much less of a burden on students than using Netflix or Amazon. I suspect the same people who feel they can post anything they want/need to their online class outlet without license or fee would not be willing for others to copy and post their material, published or not, without compensation.I am a librarian and support properly applied fair use applications, but I also support the right of those who own the material.
catlkelley - February 3, 2010 at 11:55 am
I agree 100% with spc09lib. I said above that we don’t permit use of full length videos in classes, because that is almost never covered by fair use (amount and substantiality of the work used is one of the four factors). But we do help faculty determine what is plausible fair use vs. what is not. It is a frequent misconception by faculty members that any educational use is considered fair use, but this is only one of the factors that is used in determining fair use. And it is always a judgment call involving a balance of the four factors. We help them decide whether it is a reasonable judgment call and almost certainly fair, almost certainly not fair, or someplace in the “grey area.” It is just as silly to avoid using media altogether because of fear of legal action as it is to just assume that you can use anything. And as I also work with faculty on issues concerning their own intellectual property, s/he is also right on the money there. Faculty members are extremely interested in protecting the rights to their own intellectual property. Just this morning I had a conversation with a faculty member who did not want students voice-recording his lectures because those lectures are his intellectual property. I think it is easier to see the copyright owner’s point of view when you are the copyright owner. But you can’t have it both ways. If you want the law to protect you, then you need to recognize the legitimate needs of other owners of intellectual property.
brandoncb - February 3, 2010 at 11:58 am
@aimeorg says, “I have never heard of a walled classroom that was used to show a complete 3 hour play.”This is demonstrably false. Every class I took that required watching films involved class sessions devoted to a screening. The entire class even sat still for a screening of the grueling multi-hour “Birth of a Nation.”
22250655 - February 3, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Mr. Dohra is getting on a moral horse, always a risky business for a trade association. Copyright is not fundamentally a moral protection of creators’ rights, it is intended to encourage innovation and social good. As corporations and associations act as dogs in the manger, frequently without rewarding the actual creators, they will eventually contribute to a re-evaluation of copyright that will go back to its roots. As someone who buys materials for history, I generally toss the catalogs of media materials in the recycling bin because the prices are unaffordable and, in some cases, unjustifiable.
11159995 - February 3, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Steven McDonald suggests that “institutions could argue that using 100 percent of the video is necessary for the course.” On that slippery slope we might as well admit that everything any instructor ever wanted to use in a classroom would thereby be deemed “fair use.” An entire book perhaps? A year’s worth of a magazine? —Sandy Thatcher
daniellee - February 3, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Mr. Dohra is being disingenous at best and his approach here is not helping his member companies who do, indeed, provide important resources. On the one hand he sets up a straw man by declaring “I have never heard of a walled classroom that could hold an unlimited number of students.” Neither have I; nor have I heard of any institution making their course-related video streaming services available to unlimited audiences. I am not intimately familiar with UCLA’s practices, but given the general sophistication of libraries and higher ed on these issues, I am more than reasonably confident access was limited to those enrolled in the class as is the norm for course-related content of any kind.Mr. Dohra goes on to say that “Streaming licenses are available, they often provide access that a 100 DVDs of a program couldn’t, and they are often reasonable.” This is true as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go very far. Streaming licenses are available, but not for very much content. That’s just not the world we live in. So a very reasonable fair use argument can be made for streaming entire videos under some conditions. See Wendy Gordon’s classic paper on fair use and market failure for one approach, and L. Ray Patterson’s work on the fundamental purpose of copyright for a broader approach to understanding the issues. Sandy Thatcher is right to be concerned about a slippery slope here, but such slippage can be arrested through a combination of context and principle.
amnirov - February 3, 2010 at 6:21 pm
I just get my students to subscribe to netflix and stream them from there. Netflix is only $9 bucks a month, so it’s not a big deal.
ivorytower54 - February 3, 2010 at 6:45 pm
And that netflix subscription is over $100.00 a year. More if they loose the video. If it is password protected and can’t be ripped from the site, there is absolutely no difference between showing the video in class and screening it on-line. Additionally, most LMS’s limit the student’s access to the materials after the conclusion of the semester. Instructors should get to post anything on-line that they screen in class.UCLA’s English department should COOPERATE with their Theater department and their Communication Department and produce something that they will own the rights to forever! Multidisciplinary academic cooperation could solve this problem.
lisa_l_spangenberg - February 3, 2010 at 8:13 pm
I suspect that it isn’t the English department, but rather UCLA’s Center for Digital Humanities that decided to stream the videos. I am a Ph.D. graduate of the English department, and a former employee of CDH. Given the rich facilities for DVD watching at the undergraduate library, the live theater resources on campus and in Hollywood, and the 5 million or so of student fees that make up the I.E.I. budget (http://www.college.ucla.edu/iei/), why on Earth didn’t they just license the films? From an instructional point of view, as an instrutional technology professional and an English teacher, I think streaming the films is a less than effective use of technology. Much better to arrange group sessions on campus (there are lots of places with the technology to do this on campus, including the dorms) and encourage the students to arrange their own viewing and discussion sessions.
11640482 - February 3, 2010 at 10:23 pm
To Sandy Thatcher: The quote attributed to me, while accurate, is a condensation of a much longer conversation, and some nuance got lost in the process. First, under Section 110(1), dealing with live classrooms, it is in fact perfectly legal to perform or display (though not to make or distribute copies of — this isn’t about handouts or out-of-class readings) any work in any quantity (limited only by class time) without permission and without payment. That was thought to be a limited incursion on the copyright owner’s rights, and one that serves a broader social purpose. The TEACH Act, which governs “virtual” classrooms, provides similar rights, except that it limits the performance of dramatic works to “reasonable and limited” portions. The phrase “reasonable and limited” is not defined in the statute, but the legislative history suggests that it is an elastic definition to be measured in terms of pedagogical appropriateness — meaning in some cases the amount that can be used may be quite small, and in others it may be quite large. A subsequent Congressional Research Service further states that in some cases — albeit limited — “reasonable and limited” may even mean 100% — such as the showing of an entire film in a film studies class. And the legislative history expressly states that such a use still could qualify for fair use (based on an analysis of the four factors) even if it doesn’t qualify for TEACH. For more detail and cites, please see my post at: http://library.duke.edu/blogs/scholcomm/2010/01/27/can-we-stream-digital-video/#comments
jlaster - February 4, 2010 at 5:41 am
Mr. McDonald (#15), thank you so much for posting such a detailed explanation. It can be difficult to condense all the facets of a particular legal argument to a few points (as is necessary for a newspaper article). I think your comment fleshes out your points quite well.Jill Laster
amnirov - February 4, 2010 at 7:36 am
To ivorytower54:If a student in a film class subscribes to Netflix for 4 months, it is only $36. That is a cheap cheap textbook where I come from. And Netflix streams videos. You don’t have to wait for the physical DVD. You merely watch the movie instantly online. It’s not a big deal and it keeps the jerks at AIME happy.As far as film studies go, it’s probably reasonable to limit clips on one’s password protected Blackboard site to one scene of 5 minutes or less, which is a little less than 5% of a feature film. The only exception I could envision where you might want a longer clip is in those rare situations where you’re showing a long take like in Children of Men or Goodfellas.
vicker108 - February 4, 2010 at 10:34 am
“The teacher can’t make a DVD from the VHS tape he owns” — this is plain wrong. He is not using YOUR blank DVD, YOUR DVD burner or YOUR precious labor. This kind of perverted logic will outlaw taking pictures of expensive paintings we have already purchased. I won’t surprised if it already is that way. What a world we live in.
brandoncb - February 4, 2010 at 12:13 pm
3 notes on Netflix and other commercial solutions:1. As a disappointed recent buyer of a Netflix-capable Blu-ray player, I can tell you it is only a tiny subset of their total catalog that is available to stream. 2. It is an open question whether Netflix (much less the subset of works they make available to stream) will have most, let alone all, of the films instructors would like to show to their classes. I know many of the films I saw in college classes were obscure, and some were even completely out of print. 3. The fact that there’s a vendor willing to charge you to watch something doesn’t nullify the argument that space- and time-shifting are fair uses. You can pay for services that let you watch television shows on-demand, but it is perhaps the most well-established of all fair uses to record TV programs (including films) with a VCR (or DVR) and watch them later without paying anyone.
brandoncb - February 4, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Also, @catlkelly my jaw dropped when I read this:”Just this morning I had a conversation with a faculty member who did not want students voice-recording his lectures because those lectures are his intellectual property.”I won’t get into the legal niceties of whether a student violates copyright in this situation (he surely doesn’t). Just think for a second how miserly and anti-intellectual this bizarre understanding of “intellectual property” really is. It reminds me of Ayn Rand’s legendary insistence that her critics pay a license to quote from her books and essays. Thomas Jefferson would weep to hear of a professor so intent on snuffing out the flame of ideas in his students.
11159995 - February 4, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Yes, Mr. McDonald (#15), I understand that in some contexts under some circumstances it is appropriate to reproduce an entire work, such as the Grateful Dead posters that were reproduced in a Dorling Kindserley book, which was the subject of a copyright infringement suit in the Second Circuit that found that type of us to be fair, in part because it was considered to be “transformational” in the pertinent sense. But there is also an effort afoot, promoted by Jonathan Band, Ken Crews, and others, to deploy a very expansive reading of “transformative use” such that practically everything used in teaching, except for actual textbooks themselves, can be considered to be used for a different purpose in a classroom setting, and this effort would create a slippery slope on which just about everything that university presses publish could be said to be “repurposed” for classroom teaching and hence used fairly, in whatever amounts were appropriate or necessary to achieve the educational purpose. And that comes pretty close to equating educational use with fair use–an equation which, as you know, the Supreme Court rejected in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose.To Daniel Lee (#11) I would point out that L. Ray Patterson’s theory of fair use was implicitly abandoned by the state attorney general in Georgia when his office created a new fair-use policy for the University of Georgia System in response to the suit brought by three academic publishers.And the professor excoriated by #20, I would guess, was worried that the lecture would be transcribed from the tape and sold to a commercial course-notes company, which would then reap profits from its resale to other students.—Sandy Thatcher