Kristin I am a little confused. I think you are saying that there is a company with two tiered pricing, one for individuals & one for schools?
Short answer is that there is no such thing in copyright law as "educational media' or "educational rights". Any legal (as in not a dupe or off air) DVD can be used in a class at any level provided it is being used for legitimate instructions ( as opposed to "lets show a movie to the kids today") and limited to students enrolled in specific class. Companies can and do sell films at different prices for different uses. They can do this by CONTRACT, which basically means as the owner they can determine the rules by which they will sell you a copy. Provided they are the only supplier of a particular film, this is perfectly legitimate provided they make it very clear in their terms of sale. It gets far more murky when a film is in fact sold through the wider retail market which frankly a distributor can not control. If the film is available on Amazon, through Mid-West Tape, B&T, Netflix etc you are free to buy it ( or rent it) for use in a class at whatever the retail price is. Frankly the vast majority of educational materials are in fact single source and not intended for the home market so the higher price or multi-tiered pricing is pretty much the only way a company or filmmaker can afford to distribute it. However there is no harm in checking to see if films you want to use are available at a lower price through a retail provider. On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 12:59 PM, Kristin Cooney <[email protected]>wrote: > Hello all, > > I know most of you are librarians in a University setting, but I have a > question about educational media that is used in a K-12 classroom > environment. > > We just realized that a company that markets educational materials to K-12 > teachers is selling a HOME DVD to be used in the classroom (for the much > lower price of $30). Based on what I know about educational rights and > materials, this appears to be wrong. Don't they have to sell the K-12 > educational version to teachers (if they are distinctly marketing the > materials to be used IN the classroom)? > > I would love your thoughts and/or suggestions of resources where I can find > out more about this. > > Thanks so much! > > Kristin > > > > > > > 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.
