Recently Asked Questions

[We got a question from an academic library...]

I have a question about using copyrighted materials in my classes.

A few years ago, I purchased and listened to the audio version of a Great Course called "[NAME REDACTED TO AVOID COMPLICATIONS]." Each lecture is about 30 minutes and I thought they would make a great weekly assignment in my "[NAME OF CLASS ALSO REDACTED]" class. I would have students listen to a lecture and then focus their discussion around it.

My question is, what legal ways can I share these lectures with students? I have purchased the video series at thegreatcourses.com (for $29.95). I know I can't take a screen recording of them and post on YouTube public, but could I take a screen recording and post in Brightspace? That way, they would not be able to disseminate it or access it beyond the end of the course."

PS "Brightspace" is course software (Like "BlackBoard")

Is it legal for the library to purchase a Netflix account and install it on a Roku or Firestick and lend that out for patrons to use? See also: Amazon Prime, HBO Max, Disney+, Paramount+, etc. etc.

I am asking this on behalf of the Elementary School in my district. (I work in the library of our district's high school). The Elementary School participates every year in a program called PARP. (Parents As Reading Partners). The teachers and principal always make some sort of video to kick this off this event since pandemic times.

This year the entire school is reading the SAME book: The World According to Humphrey, by Betty G. Birny. (It's a story about a Hamster and how he deals with life issues). My district's teachers want to "borrow" liberally from this Animoto video: https://animoto.com/play/ICom40fpoTdMzDov931aDQ

This video contains four components: 1. Another School (We'll call it School X, an independent school in California essentially doing the same thing), 2. an interview with the author segment, Betty G. Birny, 3. an interview with a store clerk from PetCo and 4. a video of a hamster performing "cute antics" with a voice-over dubbed in called April's Animals. (This individual posts varied animal videos on YouTube)

What my teachers want to do is create their OWN video of teachers and the principal endorsing this book, interspersed with the hamster video from April's Animals. I did observe at the end of the Animoto video, there were credits provided. My school would not use the PetCo interview or the Author Interview or the School X video as those segments are directly related to that specific school. They want to do the same idea and only use the video provided by April's Animals. I didn't know if this would be problematic because we are a public school, this would not be posted on YouTube. It would be shown over our school network to our K-2 classrooms one time only.

A taskforce at the college is wanting to use a recent song and video on Youtube. This would be a traditional lip dub with a little step up in production as they would use some greenscreen and use some face tracking to animate anti-racist quotes on the faces of the participants. They want to mimic some of the effects in the video as well as add some of our own. So it is transforming the work. Also, this would be a new creation based on the content of the video and use of the music.

In short, they are looking to do a lip dub of the song with their own spin on the video. The college has their own video streaming platform so this would not be on Youtube.
This would be for the campus community but there might be that people could share outside the organization.

The intent is to educate the campus and is part of a greater initiative to promote diversity equity and inclusion.

A high school band has purchased music with permission to perform. The music teacher has requested that the performance be shared on the school's website. From my understanding, the performance may be shared live / streamed (permission to broadcast) via the school's web page but may not be recorded and then posted to the website. The public performance relates to the site/building and not to the World Wide Web.

Please confirm whether my understanding is correct.