Digitizing service for educational use: fair use?
- November 17, 2005 @ 9:59pmelizabethH says:We have just seen a demonstration of a commercial service whose aim is to help the library provide our faculty with the ability to show digital copies of films owned by our library in dvd, video, etc. formats. Basically we send the company our "hard" copy, they digitize and encrypt (and return) and then make viewing available to only our students in specified classes at specified times via a course management system such as Blackboard. Because of the DRM (I know!) the electronic copies can't be utilized after the specified time so there is no (less?) risk of them escaping the educational setting. While I realize there are certainly money concerns-- I am pretty sure you don't ever own the electronic version-- it seems like an easy way to experiment with this and the thought is that this could be fair use (assuming that faculty go through the analysis before submitting). Our campus counsel is currently reviewing-- but I wondered if anyone here had thoughts about a service like this?
- November 18, 2005 @ 11:47amMKardick says:You should in no way consider my opinion as legal advice but here's what I think. You need to examine the four factors of fair use: purpose, nature, amount, and effect.
The purpose leans toward fair use in so far as it is for teaching, changes the work for a new utility, and has restricted access.
The nature is difficult to determine since I do know what is the nature of these videos (creative, documentary,etc.).
Amount argues against fair use since it will be the entire work and not a portion.
Effect is most likely fair use since you own the copies that are going to be digitized and you don't seem to be planning to buy additional copies anyway.
I have a concern if the student downloads the digital version it can create more problems. If there is a mechanism to prevent that, it may be worth considering.
For additional info on this and other copyright issues you may want to check out some of the links on the right.
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