UCLA Profs Banned From Posting Course Videos

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."

Comments

Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous

[eldavojohn]

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.

Re:Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous

[reg106]

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).

Re:Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous

[networkBoy]

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

Re:Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous

[PopeRatzo]

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.

To clarify:

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

So negotiate a license with the copyright holders

[JSBiff]

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?

Re:Excellent, two thumbs up!

[bsDaemon]

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.

Not nearly as bad as the summary sounds

[RingDev]

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

Re:To promote the Progress of Science and useful A

[BarryJacobsen]

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.

Open IML on the weekends

[ktappe]

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.

RTFA

[Sloppy]

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.

Re:$40,000 a semester to watch videos? What the fu

[wjousts]

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.

Re:Excellent, two thumbs up!

[mcgrew]

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.