Re: Use of Pre-Recorded Videos in Interactive Television Courses

Jessica Litman <litman[_at_]mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/3/97, Glen McKay <gmckay[_at_]nmjc.cc.nm.us> wrote:
> >
> > For the copyright holder? My question is *who in their right mind is
> > going to (illegally) copy and disseminate a commercial video that's a
> > quarter screen size and surrounded by all sorts of graphics, text and
> > icons that closely identify the product with the sending institution?*
> > How can the market possibly be harmed?
>
> For the copyright holder, the license fees it might have charged to
> permit the distant-ed version to be made may add up to a considerable
> loss, especially if Universities all over take your approach.

Granted, but shouldn't it be kept in mind that the target audience of a distance education course is a limited number of students who, having enrolled and paid tuition, are the *only* stakeholders who stand to benefit from the instructional content of the video? Whether it's a class of 35 students who are seeing the video in a traditional face-to-face classroom, or a class of 35 students who are located remotely from the instructional source, it's still a class of only 35 students-- that's the market. Seems to me a market is a market no matter where it's situated.

Cf.
> Texaco; Princeton University Press.

Okay, we're talking legalities. I would like to suggest that there is a place for philosophy in this forum.

> (This is without mentioning the other uses to which that digitized
> file might be put once it is sitting there on that computer . . . )

This is why there are, or should be, guidelines. The Multimedia Fair Use Guidelines attempted to address this issue in part, and while there is some controversy as to how constraining or liberalizing those guidelines are, they are still something you can hang your hat on in my opinion. CONFU attempted to come up with more comprehensive dist-ed guidelines but the effort ended without resolution (Harper, http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/INTELLECTUALPROPERTY/confu.htm).

-- 
Glen (McKay) Gummess
AV Services Coordinator
New Mexico Junior College
5317 Lovington Highway
Hobbs, NM  88240
(505) 392-5468 (voice)
gmckay[_at_]nmjc.cc.nm.us