Chris, Judith and list,

The examples you provided are helping me understand what the larger 
issues for librarians may be.

Below is my attempt to understand the issues that Chris, Judith and Mary 
have brought up.

Am I on the right track, and if not, can you please tweak?

1) Distributors may interpret face-to-face instruction differently from 
how libraries interpret this.  For example: "screening a regular 
consumer DVD in a classroom is a violation of copyright law, as stated 
by the Warning Screen that appears before the movie." (See 
http://johnsaylesblog.com/amigo-dvd-release/)

2) Moving image distributors may interpret right of first sale 
differently than librarians.  For example, Mary's letter that she shared 
on the listserv and Judith's email below.

Implications, concerns:

Are libraries and librarians in face-to-face instruction scenarios 
purchasing copyrights they already have at a cost of thousands of dollars?

Could libraries and distributors being conflating rights of distributing 
and licensing with rights in Sec. 108?

Is it possible that libraries are unnecessarily giving back their Amazon 
documentaries and re-purchasing at higher costs when they receive 
letters like Mary's?

Should libraries respond to distributors different interpretation, or 
ignore them?

If a face-to-face conference session is a better forum for discussion, 
I'd be happy to help organize.

Thank you for any wisdom the list can share with me.

Regards,

Laura
Laura Jenemann
Film Studies/Media Services Librarian
Johnson Center Library
George Mason University


On 2/18/2013 11:03 AM, Shoaf,Judith P wrote:
> I was doing some research recently into First Sale, and looked at the
> original US Supreme Court case, Bobbs-Merill vs. whatever Macy's was
> then. The publisher had put a label on their books saying they could
> not be sold for less than $1, but Macy's was violating that warning
> label. The court obviously ruled that once Bobbs-Merill had sold the
> books to a retailer they could label them all they wanted but they
> did not control resale terms.
>
> I think of that when I see those Warning Screens on DVDs.....
>
> Judy Shoaf
>
> ________________________________________ From:
> videolib-boun...@lists.berkeley.edu
> [videolib-boun...@lists.berkeley.edu] on behalf of Chris Lewis
> [cle...@american.edu]
>
> Tangent alert:  John Sayles also wrongly asserts that "screening a
> regular consumer DVD in a classroom is a violation of copyright law,
> as stated by the Warning Screen that appears before the movie. "
> Quoted from his "response" at the bottom of his own blog post about
> the release of his film "Amigo":
> http://johnsaylesblog.com/amigo-dvd-release/
>
> This despite the fact that none of his other films are available
> with anything but home-use rights. 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.

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