Thanks Carla. Good summary. Barb Bergman | Media Services & Interlibrary Loan Librarian | Minnesota State University, Mankato | (507) 389-5945 | [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Carla Myers Sent: Friday, August 21, 2015 2:59 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Videolib] Copyright question: American Playhouse Films Sure! Off of the top of my head I can think of three. The Google Books lawsuit and the HathiTrust lawsuit are also both good examples. In both cases the scanning of millions of books in their entirety was found to be a fair use. There is also the Bill Graham v. DK lawsuit, where courts found the republication of concert posters to be fair use. Again, I caution you to not try to limit the application of the TEACH Act based off of perceived limitations on the application of fair use. They are two different statutes and I think it's unwise to try to limit the application on one based off of the language of another. My view is that an instructor can always consider utilizing the TEACH Act for providing a copy of a work to students online, be it in part or in its entirety. Working through the points of compliance and the language of the law will help them determine if their use can be made under the Act. I personally don’t find the quote in the congressional report to be vague or nuts. To me they are saying that you do need to consider the amount of the work that is relevant to the educational goal and use only that. Say there is an instructor who is teaching an online Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) class and wishes to stream Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring in its entirety for their students. There are certainly lots of scenes in this movie that incorporate CGI, but there are also lots of senses where hobbits are wandering through pastures and there is no CGI used. Under the TEACH Act I think the instructor would be able show clips of the scenes where CGI is used but, in my opinion, the parts of the movie that have no CGI would not seem relevant to the educational goals of the class so I would discourage them from using those. As for your Citizen Kane example… I would say you would need to talk with the instructor to find out their instructional needs and then work carefully through the TEACH Act to see if it could be applied to the situation. As with almost any copyright questions you can’t generalize and say “Sure that’s ok!” You need to examine the facts of each situation, see what exemptions may be applicable, and then work from there. I don’t want to tie-up the list with back-and-forth so I’ll conclude by climbing up on a soap box and saying that fair use and the TEACH Act are exemptions that are extremely applicable in higher education. When wanting to share copyrighted works with students I encourage instructors and librarians to consider them both carefully and apply the law in a thoughtful manner. I think that as librarians we are here to promote and champion access to information. When we curb our practices out of fear of “what if I might get sued” or based off of bad copyright information we are keeping ourselves from achieving this goal. I’m certainly not encouraging anyone to break the law in the name of information advocacy! Rather I’m saying that Congress gave us these exemptions to help us fulfill this mission and I think that should always thoughtfully consider their application to a situation. Best, Carla
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.
