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UCLA Profs Banned From Posting Course Videos

Posted by kdawson on from the film-professionals-of-tomorrow dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "As of Winter Quarter 2010, UCLA professors will no longer be able to post videos on their course websites. Although they've long relied upon fair use protections for educational use, the Association for Information Media and Equipment has made claims that they're copyright infringers, even though the videos are only available on campus and the students are allowed to watch the videos in the Instructional Media Lab. Even though they believe their use of the materials to be fair, the UCLA has decided to back down rather than face litigation. Many professors have commented that this will hurt students, because they now have to watch all videos at the IML, which isn't open on weekends, forcing students to try to fit assigned videos between classes."

36 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Although they've long relied upon fair use protections for educational use, the Association for Information Media and Equipment has made claims that they're copyright infringers, even though the videos are only available on campus and the students are allowed to watch the videos in the Instructional Media Lab.

    That may be the case now but according to the article, that was the specific problem. That they were using Video Furnace to post videos online so students could view the videos outside of the IML which has horrible hours like being closed on weekends. From one of the students:

    "If we want students to write a paper on the film over the weekend, it’s more convenient for the student to rewatch the movie online over the weekend. (The ban) makes teaching cinema more difficult (because) Video Furnace was extremely useful," Gans said. "I very much hope (the university) will reach some kind of agreement."

    It seems they licensed Video Furnace for use of its technology only on campus and only on campus machines. But the ease of use means that if you post a Video Furnace movie on your course website then students -- or maybe even anyone -- could access it using a browser from anywhere. The summary link says that this may work but is not recommended due to possible latency from the server.

    The ACLU backed down because, well, the university is probably violating its licensing agreement with Video Furnace. The professors don't do licensing so they didn't understand that what they were doing was wrong. The solution is to threaten to leave Video Furnace unless they amend their licensing contract or give you a way to convert to an open format that the professors can post where ever they want -- once you have the raw video, upload it to YouTube or Vimeo. It's been shown that free online courses don't hurt enrollment anyway.

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous by reg106 · · Score: 5, Informative

      The summary is *very* confusing. In fact, TFA is very confusing. From the first few paragraphs, it is easy to misinterpret the videos in question to be recordings of lectures, but that is not the case. After reading the whole article, it is clear that the courses under consideration require students to view movies, produced by some external content-provider, outside of the class. They watch the *whole* movie, not just a part, so educational use alone isn't enough to trigger fair use. (Otherwise we'd all just use photocopied textbooks)

      When you buy a DVD, it has an implicit license to the conditions under which you can watch it (That FBI warning at the beginning indicating you can't show it to a large audience). To comply with copyright law, an "instructional" DVD which permits showing to an audience is required. I am only aware of this because our design course shows the Nightline "Deep Dive" video. If you look at the educational version (checkbox), it allows you to show to a group, but NOT to stream it. In order to stream the content, a difference license for the video would be required. I'm not sure how to get such a license right now, and this will be inconvenient for a few semesters worth of Bruins, but as demand for streamed instruction content grows, I'm sure viable licensing options will arise (as we have seen for music and popular video content).

    2. Re:Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous by Z00L00K · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And then - people are surprised that the quality of education is getting worse.

      The copyright and patent issues seems to put a blanket over everything, so soon is the western world going down the drain while countries where copyright and patents are weak will outpace the western world.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    3. Re:Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous by networkBoy · · Score: 4, Informative

      Fair use still applies to the whole movie:

      US Code Title17, Chapter1, ss107 is crystal clear:

      the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

      -nB

      --
      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
    4. Re:Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous by pavon · · Score: 2, Informative

      When you buy a DVD, it has an implicit license to the conditions under which you can watch it (That FBI warning at the beginning indicating you can't show it to a large audience). To comply with copyright law, an "instructional" DVD which permits showing to an audience is required.

      This is false. There is an explicit exemption for use of videos in the classroom. From 17 USC 110 (1):

      (1) performance or display of a work by instructors or pupils in the course of face-to-face teaching activities of a nonprofit educational institution, in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction, unless, in the case of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, the performance, or the display of individual images, is given by means of a copy that was not lawfully made under this title, and that the person responsible for the performance knew or had reason to believe was not lawfully made;

      However, this does not cover posting videos online, like UCLA was doing. IIRC (can't find a link right now), there have been cases where schools tried to include videos in distance learning classes, and the judge ruled that it was not fair use.

    5. Re:Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous by reg106 · · Score: 3, Informative
      US Code Title17, Chapter1, ss107 also says:

      In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—
      (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
      (2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
      (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
      (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

      IANAL, and I am unclear on the full implications of the case law surrounding this, but clearly the interpretation cannot be so broad as you suggest. Otherwise it would be useless to copyright educational materials. Educational purpose is one aspect to be be considered, but (3) is also a significant consideration here. If you showed clips of a movie in a cinema class for the purposes of analysis and criticism, that would be fair use. To show the whole movie, you need an appropriately licensed version. Similarly, since the 90s universities (and students) have been paying royalties on papers included in course packs, even though these papers are clearly for educational purposes.

    6. Re:Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous by sribe · · Score: 3, Informative

      ...crystal clear:

      Yes, it's pretty clear. It's your reading comprehension that's lacking. "The fair use... for such purposes as... is not an infringement..." does not mean that "any use... for such purposes... is fair use and therefore... is not an infringement..." The other requirements for fair use still apply even for such purposes.

    7. Re:Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Fair use still applies to the whole movie:

      Of course it does.

      But when you have the money and will to sue anyone whose fair use you don't like, you get to make the rules and the law be damned.

      And now that industry groups like AIME and RIAA can dump millions into swaying elections with impunity, they probably won't even have to go to the trouble of taking anyone to court, because even the smallest copyright "infringements" will become criminalized rather than a civil matter.

      That's their holy grail: to make all intellectual "property" "infringement" a felony, no matter how small, and to wipe out once and for all the notion of "fair use".

      Watch for public libraries to start closing then. My guess is they'll open up low cost, privatized "ebook libraries" where the the ebooks will self-destruct via DRM after a short time. They'll say this approach is "better than libraries". The privatization of the public library system is coming to America. Bet on it.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    8. Re:Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous by cpt+kangarooski · · Score: 2, Informative

      However, this does not cover posting videos online, like UCLA was doing.

      That would be 110(2), but it has a number of limitations to it, such that UCLA might not have qualified for it, depending on precisely what it had been doing.

      And of course, where no other exception applies, and where the use would otherwise be infringing, fair use may always be raised as a defense. It might not succeed, as not every use is necessarily a fair use, but it might succeed, as any use is potentially a fair use.

      --
      -- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
    9. Re:Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous by networkBoy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      True, but given that this is EDU and likely won;t impact market as clause 4 indicates means that it should apply as fair use (IANAL either), textbooks on the other hand would have clause 4 severly impacted, thus fair use would not apply.

      --
      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
  2. Fair Use by conureman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Time to get a new edition of the Legal Dictionary, the one with the correct interpretations of words you THOUGHT you knew, like Common Law, and Common Sense.

    --
    The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
    1. Re:Fair Use by IBBoard · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Common Law, and Common Sense

      Aren't those two basically a dichotomy when it comes to copyright law and the like?

      Granted, there may have been other issues involved here (e.g. licensing) but the issue that is presented seems reasonable enough for it to be silly to threaten the profs/university.

  3. Law School Opportunity? by HTMLSpinnr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What a better way to break in some law or pre-law students than to represent this case. Backing down benefits nobody but AIME and future precedent for online coursework.

    --
    $ man woman *
    -bash: /usr/bin/man: Argument list too long
  4. Excellent, two thumbs up! by moz25 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Isn't this *exactly* what we want? Let the next generation get first-hand generation of the worse sides of copyright law. THEY are the ones who will tip the balance to actually change things as the older generation is phased out.

    I hope they will remember this incident very well in their future careers.

    --
    see a Text Widget
    1. Re:Excellent, two thumbs up! by bsDaemon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm reminded of a quote by the great libertarian socialist (anarchist) thinker Mikhail Bakunin which goes "To my utter despair I have discovered, and discover every day anew, that there is in the masses no revolutionary idea or hope or passion." I think that you might be too hopeful if you think that kids are going to get a bum idea of copyright law then take to the streets to change it. I would hope that institutes of education would take a stand against such an inequity, but apparently this is what happens when school start to be run as businesses rather than as institutes of learning.

    2. Re:Excellent, two thumbs up! by MozeeToby · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not by taking to the streets, by taking to the boardrooms (and courtrooms and congress chambers). In 20 years, the generation that grew up loathing the copyright moguls will be the ones making the decisions, and I'd be willing to bet that they'll make their decisions a little differently than the groups that are in charge now.

    3. Re:Excellent, two thumbs up! by jo42 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not when they get a taste of the almighty Dollar (or Euro). They will then be turned to the dark side...

    4. Re:Excellent, two thumbs up! by bsDaemon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Schooling and education aren't the same thing, but maybe I just have a different perspective on things -- my academic degree is in English and Classical History. I work a system administrator, but I'm not really an "IT person" in the traditional sense. As the head of the Classics department at my school used to say, "a liberal arts education prepares you to fully enjoy the life you'll never be able to afford." Before I finally bit the bullet and got back into computers ( do have a valid nerd background -- a 5-digit id and I'm only 25 and a half), it was pretty true.

      But, when I was in school studied literature, history, philosophy, politics, sociology, etc. I traveled abroad and made friends with foreign students who came to my school to study. I was always reading on my own, debating, etc. Do I use anything in my schooling for my job? No, not really -- but I use what I was educated with every day, because it gives me a very different perspective on things than I would have gotten if I just plugged into a terminal for the whole time I was at college. I was the English major who used unix and who occasionally wrote perl scripts to help with structuralist analysis of literature.

      Of course, this is all off-topic now, but its just that the idea that an education is supposed to turn one into a good little worker bee really gets under my skin.

    5. Re:Excellent, two thumbs up! by Mister+Whirly · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yeah, just like all the hippies in the late 60s who grew up to be the conservative corporate suits now. I am not holding my breath. The almighty dollar can really do some damage to morals and ideals over 20 years of time.

      --
      "But this one goes to 11!"
    6. Re:Excellent, two thumbs up! by mcgrew · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In 20 years, the generation that grew up loathing the copyright moguls will be the ones making the decisions, and I'd be willing to bet that they'll make their decisions a little differently than the groups that are in charge now.

      You'd lose that bet. Back in the seventies we were a new generation with new ideas. The old sexual taboos were gone, nobody called a loose woman a "slut" because they all were as "slutty" as we men, marijuana was going to be legal as soon as the dinasaurs were out of power.

      Then came AIDS and free love went out the window. My generation is now in power, and guess what? Those in power are the same kinds of assholes that were in power when my dad was younger than I am now, and I no longer see pot being legal "any day now".

      It's not a generational war, it's a class war, and you and I are on the losing side.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
    7. Re:Excellent, two thumbs up! by khallow · · Score: 2, Informative

      "To my utter despair I have discovered, and discover every day anew, that there is in the masses no revolutionary idea or hope or passion."

      Why should there be? It'd almost be like expecting most people to have a particular mental illness (with the implication that the mental illness is a good thing). The masses have been burned every time that they entertained revolutionary ideas, hopes, and passions of the sort promoted by Mr. Bakunin and his ilk.

    8. Re:Excellent, two thumbs up! by quanticle · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Really? Why don't we look at the previous generation? The same boomers that participated in Woodstock ended up voting for Reagan and Bush. So you can't expect that sort of attitude to remain

      --
      We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
  5. To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts by Rogerborg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

    What a curious definition of "promote" we've arrived at.

    --
    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  6. To clarify: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    They are NOT talking about videos of the courses

    The ban applies to videos assigned by professors for students to watch.

    Previously these could be streamed and watched at student's leisure. Now they have to go to the media lab to watch them.

  7. So negotiate a license with the copyright holders by JSBiff · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This seems like just a 'simple' negotiating situation to me. UCLA should just refuse to buy or use any instructional videos which don't grant them a license to make the videos available to enrolled students and faculty online. If the copyright holders want to play hardball, play hardball. Heck, extend this beyond UCLA, and make it a State of California mandate for all state Universities in the California system. What instructional video publisher wants to be locked out of all California public Universities?

  8. Re:Actually *attend* the lectures? by VoiceInTheDesert · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is about supplimental learning from what I understand. Not lecture material, but educational videos that relate to the topic made by someone other than the prof and for which there is not time in class to view.

  9. Not nearly as bad as the summary sounds by RingDev · · Score: 4, Informative

    This isn't about a recording of a lecture that gets posted, this is about copyright protected videos that a professor shows during a lecture being posted.

    So under this threat, a professor that shows "Steamboat Willy" in a class can not post "Steamboat Willy" onto the more accessible distribution system.

    -Rick

    --
    "Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
  10. Re:To promote the Progress of Science and useful A by BarryJacobsen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

    What a curious definition of "promote" we've arrived at.

    It's actually pro-mote. As in "in favor of dust". As in the progress of science and useful arts should collect dust if it's not making some business (read: MY business) money.

    --
    Track your TV Shows with your iPhone - FREE
  11. Open IML on the weekends by ktappe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If the profs feel that strongly, then they need to vociferously make it clear to the administration that no action comes without a consequence. Specifically, demand the IML be open on weekends. UCLA probably instituted the ban to save money on legal fees and/or licensing but now need to be made to pay to open the IML at hours the students can use it. TANSTAAFL.

    --
    "We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
  12. RTFA by Sloppy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The summary almost makes it sound like professors can't put up videos of their own lectures. But that's not what this is about at all. It's about professors not being able to put up other people's video. It even mentions a cinema professor. e.g. "Hey, we're gonna watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre tonight and talk about it tomorrow. Oh, you can't come tonight? No problem, I'll just put the movie up on the class website." It's not exactly shocking that someone objected to that.

    --
    As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
  13. Re:$40,000 a semester to watch videos? What the fu by Kleiba · · Score: 2, Funny

    You have a college education?

  14. Re:$40,000 a semester to watch videos? What the fu by wjousts · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What the fuck? There are Americans out there who are willing to pay $40,000 a semester just to watch some goddamn "educational" videos? Is this for real?

    Back when I was in college, I wasn't paying anywhere near that much, but you'd better fucking imagine that I got my money's worth by dealing with the professors and making sure they were teaching me directly, and not just telling me to watch some cockbiting "supplementary videos" or any fancy shit-in-my-pants like that. Fuck.

    Kinda hard to teach film without, you know, watching films.

    Kinda like teaching literature without reading books.

  15. Their mission statement.... by goffster · · Score: 2, Informative

    "The mission of AIME (pronounced “aim”) is to promote fair and appropriate use of the media and equipment delivering information in a rapidly changing world."

  16. Imagine books instead of video by Cajun+Hell · · Score: 3, Informative

    Teacher: "Good morning, lit class. Next we'll be reading Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. It's for sale at the bookstore. Go buy a copy and read the first 100 pages and we'll talk about it on Monday."

    Student: "Buy?! I can't afford that."

    Teacher: "Ok, well the library also has--"

    Student: "Only one copy and Ralph here next to me already checked it out."

    Teacher: "Ok, well, then, I'll just take my copy here over to the photocopy machine. Who all of you need a free copy?"

    Student: "Me!"

    Student: "Mee!"

    Student: "Me too!"

    Heller: "Brains!" [Kills teacher and eats brain.]

    Student: "Why did you kill teacher?"

    Heller: "Copyright infringement."

    Student: "You're dead. Why do you care?"

    Heller: "Need money buy brains."

    That's a totally believable scenario. But change the book to a movie and suddenly people are surprised that someone's brain got eaten.

    --
    "Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
  17. They're not showing them to everyone... by Xenographic · · Score: 2, Insightful

    > No problem, I'll just put the movie up on the class website." It's not exactly shocking that someone objected to that.

    Actually, it's still pretty unreasonable, because the videos on the class website are only available on campus and not (easily) saved (unless you have a stream ripper for media furnace or something). That link is in the submission, but it seems like people are busy pointing out that the videos in question are commercial videos that are class assignments (rather than videos of lectures) while ignoring the fact that they're not just distributing these videos to all and sundry. They're only letting students watch them.

  18. Common Law is mostly irrelevant by Oxford_Comma_Lover · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Common law is mostly irrelevant to copyright. Copyright is almost entirely statutory. (i.e. passed by the legislature rather than judge-made law that derives from centuries of doctrine in England). While there are some old cases (there was one between the AP and another news aggregator that was effectively a "scraper" of AP-published news content during WW1), for the most part the copyright law says whatever Disney pays your Congressman to make it say.

    --
    -- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!