Movie Clips and Copyright - 0 views
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Kimberly Green on 28 Jul 10Video clips -- sometimes the copyright question comes up, so this green light is good news. Video clips may lend themselves to scenario-based assessments -- instead of reading a long article, students could look at a digitally presented case to analyze and critique -- might open up a lot of possibilities for assessment activities. a latest round of rule changes, issued Monday by the U.S. Copyright Office, dealing with what is legal and what is not as far as decrypting and repurposing copyrighted content. One change in particular is making waves in academe: an exemption that allows professors in all fields and "film and media studies students" to hack encrypted DVD content and clip "short portions" into documentary films and "non-commercial videos." (The agency does not define "short portions.") This means that any professors can legally extract movie clips and incorporate them into lectures, as long as they are willing to decrypt them - a task made relatively easy by widely available programs known as "DVD rippers." The exemption also permits professors to use ripped content in non-classroom settings that are similarly protected under "fair use" - such as presentations at academic conferences.