UCLA Profs Banned From Posting Course Videos 134
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."
Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous (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 [arstechnica.com].
Re:Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous (Score:5, 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. I am only aware of this because our design course shows the Nightline "Deep Dive" video [go.com]. 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 (Score:5, 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
Re:Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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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.
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Well it's not that it "would not apply," but that the balance would likely be determined against fair use. The tricky thing about fair use is that all four of those criteria must be considered, but there is no indication of how to quantify their implications. A lot of university lawyers try to get out of this by saying arbitrarily that 10% (or whatever) of a copyrighted work is all that may be used, but that is just a number pulled out of the air. In general violations of this sort are likely to be treat
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Re:Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous (Score:4, 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.
Re:Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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I'll have to go ahead and ask you to provide a citation to back up that statement.
Certainly there are people who don't know how to use bittorrent or download movies or other copyrighted material. And there are people who just don't want the hassle. And there are people who like to have the liner notes and nice plastic cover that comes with a CD or DVD. There are certainly man
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Mod parent up! (Score:2)
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It shouldn't even need fair use, given that the State of California and its universities enjoy sovereign immunity from copyright and patent suits [ucla.edu]. I'm not quite sure why they capitulated in light of that.
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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) [copyright.gov]:
(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.
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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.
Re:Summary Is Confusing or Erroneous (Score:4, 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.
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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.
Surely the 'solution' would be for the customer, in this case the ACLU, to buy the correct licensing - not threaten the license holder...
Your suggestion smacks of 'wahhh I didnt buy what I should have but give it to me anyway!'
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The VideoFurnace product they are using allows users to stream the video using Multicast, using their VOD (Video On Demand) module. In theory, this content can be viewed anywhere on the UCLA Multicast Domain, which also includes a majority of the Internet2. Generally this is seen as "on campus only" Consumers cannot watch this content from home, as most commericial ISPs don't participate in Internet2, nor do they support multicast. Additionally, the VideoFurance equipment allows for this content to be e
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The ACLU backed down because, well, the university is probably violating its licensing agreement with Video Furnace
Frankly, I don't know why the american civil liberties union was sticking their nose into the University of California at Los Angeles' business anyway. I'm guessing they got the acronyms mixed up, which must have been very embarrassing for them at court.
"Your honor, the ACLU feels it's use of video in online courses not only is a fair use, but also we don't even offer courses, nor do we put videos up for said nonexistent courses, so we ask you to dismiss the case."
"Uh, this was a case against UCLA, not the
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Did I miss something? How is the ACLU involved in this?
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So they are still spineless and undedicated to the ideas that they should be championing in our society.
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You have a college education?
Re:$40,000 a semester to watch videos? What the fu (Score:5, 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.
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How exactly do you learn about what makes a good scene break / transition, while doing still photography?
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"So... how exactly do you learn about using a trolley to do a trucking shot, while doing still photography?"
Oh, I dunno, you learn about film speed, shutter speed, and how it applies to a moving subject in an actual photography class, since it all applies to movies in the basics and in the long run? Still photography shoots can be non-stationary (follow a distance runner in-focus while moving at their speed, and take a high-speed shot to capture their movement in absolute clarity.)
"How exactly do you learn
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I have a nice 35mm SLR that can capture most anything, including the Milky Way. Considering the capabilities of my camera, I could probably get your shot and THEN SOME.
Minolta X-700 w/ ISO200 high-grain film FOR THE WIN.
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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.
UCLA tuition is more like $5000/semester.
Fair Use (Score:3, 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.
Re:Fair Use (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Common Law is mostly irrelevant (Score:4, 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.
Law School Opportunity? (Score:3, 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.
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Excellent, two thumbs up! (Score:3, 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.
Re:Excellent, two thumbs up! (Score:5, Interesting)
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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.
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Not when they get a taste of the almighty Dollar (or Euro). They will then be turned to the dark side...
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Re:Excellent, two thumbs up! (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.
California has gone to pot (Score:2)
I no longer see pot being legal "any day now".
Months ago, President Obama announced a policy revision [huffingtonpost.com] not to interfere with states that legalize medical cannabis. One might compare this to the 21st Amendment, which devolved the power to ban alcohol from the federal government to the states. I wait to see how this will apply if California voters put pot over the counter this November [latimes.com].
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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
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The same boomers that participated in Woodstock ended up voting for Reagan and Bush.
Not necessarily. The number of people at Woodstock is in the thousands while the number of boomers is in the millions. There were plenty of people at the time who thought the people going to Woodstock were a bunch of "damn dirty hippies", and plenty more that had never even heard of it until well after the fact.
It could be an interesting thing to research but I suspect that the people who voted in Reagan and Bush were, for
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"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.
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"...an education is supposed to turn one into a good little worker bee..."
That's exactly what PUBLIC education is for. Private education is for whoever pays the bills to determine.
If the customer/student wants a particular curriculum, they can choose freely among the offerings in the market (or self-educate if the market doesn't suit).
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts (Score:4, Insightful)
What a curious definition of "promote" we've arrived at.
Re:To promote the Progress of Science and useful A (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Don't bring the Invisible Hand [wikipedia.org] into it. It's been discredited. Give a real reason that actually works.
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That said, the invisible hand has little to do with what I said. If the market for creative works were able to self-regulate, there would be no copyright. Copyright is a market correction.
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1) Give authors economic rights.
2) ??? <-- invisible hand
3) Science and the useful Arts progress forward.
I don't dispute that this cargo-cult mechanism is included in the US constitution, but you have to admit that Rogerborg is right to at least question it.
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To clarify: (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.
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Now they have to go to the media lab to watch them.
If the demand on the media lab increases to the point where students need to use it on weekends, the university should extend the hours of the lab if it has any sense.
They're deliberately trying to save court fees... will they also say they can't pay a few students minimum wage to sit at a reference desk on Sunday?
So negotiate a license with the copyright holders (Score:5, 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?
Re:So negotiate a license with the copyright holde (Score:2)
Yes, because Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama is a perfect substitute for Citizen Kane.
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I'm no negotiations expert, but my understanding is negotiations work because bothsides have a stake and in fact want the negotiations to succeed. Sure, UCLA and the UC System wouldn't want to lose access to the video works. But, neither would the copyright holders want to risk losing the revenue they get from the UC system. But, if the California powers that be (I'm not sure what it's called in California; in Ohio we have the Ohio Board of Regents, and ultimately, the governor and legislature) threatened o
torrent? (Score:2)
link please?
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This will give UCLA an exact dollar value of damages caused by this illegal threat for a baseless case.
This is not an illegal threat. UCLA acknowledges that the would-be-plaintiff has a valid copyright because they entered into a licensing agreement with them. If they violate the license, not only is there a state claim for violating a contract, but a federal claim for violating the copyright. There would be no failure to state a claim, especially for a frivolous suit. Intellectual property is very, very special and viewed as unique. Accordingly, the bar for frivolity is just that much higher.
Fair use exemptions are clearly in force here so this is a frivolous lawsuit made in bad faith
No matter what
Videos? In college? (Score:2, Insightful)
What sort of videos are we talking about? The only videos I've ever watched in an educational setting were pointless time wasters intended to give the teacher a break. If that's what we're talking about, they have a point. But there's really no loss as they're a waste of time anyway.
If we're talking about video recording of lectures given by professors, then the professors should have the copyright and should be able to distribute them any way they want. This would be far more useful than some generic e
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I took a lit class called "An Introduction to Vice" in which we read a bunch of Shakespeare plays (Othello==Rage, Merchant of Venice==Greed, etc) and watched 12 Hitchcock films. The films were an integral part of the course.
In high school and before, I can (sadly) see your point. But if you have a prof. showing a film in college and you consider it a pointless time waster, I think you went to the wrong school or took the wrong class.
-t.
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No, I didn't watch any videos in college, just HS. Which is why I expressed surprise at that. Generally though, I'd consider English Lit to be a pretty pointless waste of time, videos or not.
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I'd have to disagree with you on that one. If you've never read something that moved you, you haven't read the right books.
-t.
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I've read plenty of stuff that moves me. It's just all non-fiction. It's really pretty hard to get worked up about stuff that never happened to people that never existed. Shakespeare just seems like 400 year old soap operas to me.
Just about the only fiction I care for is Lewis Carrol and Edgar Allen Poe. But still, studying those in college would be a waste of time when I could be learning valuable skills instead. It's entertainment.
The thing I really hate about english lit is that you have to interpret
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If you RTFA, you would see that they mention several examples. This is not about lectures. Some of them are educational videos, which I tend to agree are often a waste of time. However, some of the videos are absolutely necessary for the course (in some form or another), like this one:
Eric Gans, a French cinema professor, has also been impacted by the video ban. Because his class falls on Mondays and Wednesdays, Mondays are usually designated to watch the movies that they discuss on Wednesdays. However, two weeks this quarter, due to the national holidays that fall on Mondays, Gans’ 40 students will have to individually watch the one copy of the movie held at reserve in the Media Lab.
“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.”
I imagine that buying a dozen imported french films would be fairly expensive for a student, so it would be nice if they could come to some sort of arrangement that is better than a single reserve copy.
Clarification of the issue. (Score:2)
What sort of videos are we talking about? The only videos I've ever watched in an educational setting were pointless time wasters intended to give the teacher a break. If that's what we're talking about, they have a point. But there's really no loss as they're a waste of time anyway.
If we're talking about video recording of lectures given by professors, then the professors should have the copyright and should be able to distribute them any way they want. This would be far more useful than some generic educa
Remote Access? (Score:1)
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Apparently that's what they've got with this Video Furnace thing. And that's what the copyright holders are objecting to.
How is this different from course readers? (Score:2)
Written material by others, namely, course readers, have to abide to copyright: there is no fair-use exemption that allows the readers to be made without paying the copyright holders, nor for faculty to copy textbooks.
Why should videos not done by the faculty be any different?
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Had you read some comments before willy-nilly posting, you would know that there is, in fact, fair-use exemption that allows the readers to be made without paying the copyright holders, and for faculty to copy textbooks. [slashdot.org]
digital libraries (Score:1)
Since these videos are for educational purposes for students of the university, it seems simple enough to restrict access based on student IDs. Perhaps there is a method to check out online media from the library.
This article (being that it's on UCLA's site) mostly seems like a ploy to gain popular support even though they violated their contract with Video Furnace (who respects copyright law). "We can't provide this free service anymore because of the big bad company we just scammed!" I could not envision
Not nearly as bad as the summary sounds (Score:5, 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
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Open IML on the weekends (Score:5, Insightful)
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"There is simply no money at UCLA to keep the IML open on weekends."
I find that hard to believe. The same for the lack of money for library hours. This is a University. If students can't access materials for learning at useful times then what is the point. I can understand closing during low use periods but early evening and weekends!?!
There are plenty of places they can cut back and free up funds. I'm sure they could reduce staff, reduce programs and reduce faculty and reduce salaries. Heck, they cou
RTFA (Score:5, 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.
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"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.
WAITAMINUTE.
Copyright was created to protect the rights and ownership of the author and insure they were compensated for their work for a limited time in return for the work becoming publicly available to enrich the community later. However, there are exceptions. Specifically...
"In the United States, the fair use doctrine, permits copying and distribution without permission of the copyright holder or payment to same. Fair dealing uses are research and study; review and critique; parody and satire; news r
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Their objection is going to be that the material is copied for the purpose of someone researching/critiquing, rather than as research/critique. (I'm trying to think of a way to say that, without sounding subtle or pedantic, but I'm not doing well.) The copy of the movie that they're distributing, doesn't have the fair use qualifiers in it.
Suppose
They're not showing them to everyone... (Score:3, 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 [ucla.edu] 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)
Similar as with copyrights on scientific papers (Score:2)
The copyrights are NOT owned by the authors (the researchers, who did the experiments, compiled the results, came up with theories, ideas, formulas and supporting material, wrote the whole damn thing), but by the journal. Who gets all the revenue, too. The researchers get jack. And their work, since copyrighted, cannot be distributed to the humanity as a whole, even though that was the intention of the scientists.
Their mission statement.... (Score:3, 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."
Watch it .. Copy it .. Enjoy .. (Score:1)
Something tells me that a UCLA student knows how to make a duplicate of a video ...
1. Go to lab. ... unless knowledge is its own reward or perhaps knowing to much is illegal to)
2. Make copy of video to watch whenever you want. If you can watch it, you can copy it.
(3. profit? oh wait that would be wrong and illegal
Slightly more work then just straight to home streaming but a minor hickup in the grand scheme of things.
college executives are notorious wimps (Score:2)
'standards' based solution? (Score:2)
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An open standards web based solution would do them just fine, only it would allow the less technically challenged people the capability of making a private copy for later reference.
Sure, and it therefore allows redistribution - why should the rest of the world not benefit from UCLA's movie collection? BitTorrent, anyone?
The problem is, the rest of the world hasn't quite caught up to the "pirate manifesto" which says (a) digital goods have no cost and (b) if it exists, I want a copy. When it does, great. Until then, you can expect lawsuits over distribution and redistribution where someone isn't getting paid.
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The issue here was the software needed to use/deliver the media, not the media itself. The only pirating going on was the students using a proprietary software package that they were told they needed to have/install on their personal machine in order to use the media that they already paid for through their tuition fees. Their tuition fees did not however pay for the software they needed, and the University should have known th
In my day... (Score:2)
I just don't get it. OK, so I went to college in the pre-Internet days, and times have obviously changed, but this really struck me:
Isn't part of the educational process (or life in general) getting people to be responsible with and accountable to their time? Or am I just part of an older generation?
H
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College libraries are pretty much always opened weekends and early evenings; around exam time, many universities keep them opened all the way to midnight. This is a rather major difference from something that's only opened during class hours.
Imagine books instead of video (Score:4, 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.
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You usually wouldn't be able to stop 'em because you'd never know when it's happening. But whenever you catch 'em, eat their brain and they'll stop. (They caught UCLA and UCLA stopped, didn't they?)
the Chronicle of Higher Education (Score:1)
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/University-Pulls-Videos-From/21013/ [chronicle.com]
UCLA had been using "Video Furnace" to provide video content in the context of courses (integrated with UCLA Moodle as well), and has recently suspended this based on a challenge from AIME. The article gives a little more background.
IANAL but I am a Graduate student at UCLA and anytime a company wants "protection" money for something my PUBLIC University already paid for AND am using unde
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When I was at university, we had to go to the lectures in person - not wait for them to come out on video. How times change.
I'm sure these aren't the lectures, or else there wouldn't be an intellectual property issue. Then there's the issue of online classes. I work in distance education, and have to put a lot of video in classes, because students don't attend a lecture. We embed them in our course management system (Moodle), so they're only accessible to our students, not just out in the wild.
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When I was at university you could smoke cigarettes in class, and smoke pot with the professors after class.
How times change!
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They don't own the copyright to the movies, which is what was being posted, not their lectures. Check out the rest of the comments where the incredibly poor lead-in is taken to task.
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Why would they not have the copyright to the movies of their classes? Is Video furnace a movie production company that comes in and videos the classes (av staff) or just some software used to create the movies?
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I did read the article and it did not make sense to me. Maybe because I am unfamiliar with Video Furnace or whatever that is and how it works. The article never said who owned the copyright, who was threatening to sue. The group that notified the University seemed to be like RIAA for teachers, the Association for the Information Media and Equipment, can not be the copyrighter certainly, it is a non-profit membership organization offering copyright information and support to teachers, librarians, media cente
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Teaching film classes from textbooks is like masturbating to ASCII porn.