Streaming Video Guide for Online Classes

These guidelines follow best practices developed by colleges and universities in consideration of the U.S. copyright law (Title 17, United States Code). The COVID-19 crisis necessitates the emergency transition to online classes. Given these exigent circumstances colleges and universities are relying heavily on ‘fair use’ to provide resources for online classes.

Public Statement of Library Copyright Specialists: Fair Use & Emergency Remote Teaching & Research.

For more information, please see the Library’s Moving Image Copyright Policy (link forthcoming).

Streaming video and video clips used in online courses must be:

• Essential to the course.
• Provided to students at the instructor’s direction during the relevant class.
• Accessible only:
  • to students enrolled in the course
  • within a password protected website or course management system
  • and only for the duration of the course.
• Protected from further distribution.
  • No retention by students or faculty.
  • No downloading or stream capture

Copyright Notice - Post to your Course website:

The materials on this course website are only for the use of students enrolled in this course for purposes associated with this course, and may not be retained or further disseminated. The materials on this course website are protected by copyright; any further use of this material may be in violation of U.S. copyright law.

Moving image titles, or any published or unpublished materials, eventually move into the Public Domain in the U.S. If a title is in the Public Domain, that means that there is no copyright owner to gain permission to use that material.

You may use these resources to determine if a title is in the Public Domain:

• Cornell's chart Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States
• Berkeley's PDF handbook Is it in the Public Domain?

For more information see the Library’s Moving Image Copyright Guidelines. (link forthcoming)