MPAA Says Teachers Should Camcord For Fair Use

unlametheweak recommends an Ars Technica piece detailing the convoluted lengths to which the MPAA will go in order to keep anybody from ripping a DVD, ever. The organization showed a film to the US Copyright Office, in the triennial hearing to spell out exemptions to the DMCA, giving instructions for how a teacher could use a camcorder to record a low-quality clip of a DVD for educational use — even though such a purpose is solidly established in law as fair use. "Never mind that this solution results in video of questionable quality and requires teachers to learn even more tech in order to get the job done. It also requires schools (or, given the way most schools are run, the teachers themselves) to incur additional costs to purchase camcorders and videotapes if they don't have them already. Add in the extra time involved, and this 'solution' is a laughably convoluted alternative to simply ripping a clip from a DVD."

Comments

Re:well that explains it...

[BobSixtyFour]

I wish I had an awesome teacher like that. Going into the movie theater in the name of education to capture a clip in the discussion about:

"the use of special effects in modern star trek movie VS the original movies."

That and a > 9000 word essay.

For starters

[DarkNinja75]

It might help if we didn't call it "ripping."

How much longer?

[OrangeTide]

How much longer before the MPAA becomes irrelevant and we can just ignore their antics?

Actually that would be an awesome consequence

[SuperKendall]

If only someone would propose a bill that would allow camcording in theaters for editorial use, pointing to the example the media companies gave as evidence for the necessity of the inclusion...