Of an avian flu pandemic and the TEACH Act

From: Jan Carmikle Dwyer <jcdwyer[_at_]ucdavis.edu>
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 11:35:45 -0400

I have a very interesting question from the media teaching resources lab here at my public university - anyone care to hazard an opinion?

Here's something to tickle your brain. In the event of a pandemic that shut down University operations (classes cancelled, faculty and students told to remain home, etc.) thus preventing "face to face" teaching activities, would TEACH act exemptions for audio-visual material apply to classes that continued their operations online for the duration of the University shutdown? Or is there something in the TEACH act that explicitly defines what is and what is not distance education?

In my environment, I would wonder if I could digitize copyright-protected videos and make them available online to the students in each class. All necessary means of electronic content protection would be used of course, including class roster authentication restrictions, streaming technology instead of web downloads or file sharing tools. etc.)

My initial response is yes, but only if the switch was to distance learning as explicitly defined in the TEACH Act, and within the limitations spelled out therein as well. The pandemic would not make such uses fair use, and any of you in higher educational institutions know how much faculty like to think of all their uses as fair!

Jan Carmikle Dwyer
Intellectual Property Officer
Technology Transfer Services/TIA/OVCR
University of California, Davis
1850 Research Park Dr Suite 100
Davis CA 95618-6134
Voice: 530-297-4493
Fax: 530-758-3276
Email: jcdwyer[_at_]ucdavis.edu

            copyright[_at_]ucdavis.edu
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www.research.ucdavis.edu/copyright Received on Thu Aug 10 2006 - 19:35:45 GMT