Re: [digital-copyright] MOOCs and Film Copyright

[Kevin Smith <kevin.l.smith@xxxxxxxx>]

As far as the MOOC platform provider is concerned, my best guess is that they
would rely on the safe-harbor for ISPs created by the DMCA.  That is, they
have a designated agent to receive notice of infringement, and would take down
material that is the subject of such notice.  Doing that would likely protect
them from liability.  The universities, I suspect, do not meet all of the
criteria for secondary liability in this situation.  So any dispute would
probably have to be between the rights holder and the user who uploaded the
infringing film; that user would be the direct infringer, and secondary
liability for either of the other parties would be hard to establish, I
think.

Also, we should be careful about certainty regarding copyright status; a film
from the 1950s may still be protected, but it also could be in the public
domain due to a failure to renew the copyright, as would have been required
for something from that era.

As for Google, they would be insulated, in all probability, by the same DMCA
safe-harbor that the platform provider could rely on.  That is, they are not
liable for materials uploaded by users without their knowledge, as long as
they follow set procedures for takedown once they are notified of specific
material alleged to be infringing.  So in my opinion Google does take
copyright seriously; although their approach may be different from YouTube's,
both are acting based on options provided within the copyright law.

Kevin

Kevin L. Smith, M.L.S., J.D.
Director of Copyright and Scholarly Communications
Duke University Libraries
P.O. Box 90193
Durham, NC 27708
919-668-4451
Kevin.l.smith@xxxxxxxx


From: Russell Poulin <RPoulin@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:RPoulin@xxxxxxxxx>>
Date: Saturday, March 16, 2013 11:43 AM
To:
"digital-copyright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:digital-copyright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>"
<digital-copyright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:digital-copyright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
Subject: [digital-copyright] MOOCs and Film Copyright

Hello -
I was participating in a MOOC on the study of Hollywood films.  Films were
assigned, but it was up to the students to find them on their own through
NetFlix, Vudu, YouTube, purchases, video stores, or however they could find
them.

A few people posted links to all the films both in the course's Discussion
Forum and in the unofficial FaceBook page that accompanied the course.  I say
"unofficial" because it was not sponsored by the university offering the
course nor the MOOC provider.   They used Google Docs as the vehicle for
distributing the films they uploaded.

Some of the films were silent films from 1929.  Those studios are now defunct
and my guess is that their copyrights had passed into the public domain long
ago.  The last two films were from the 1950s and 1990s and I'm sure that their
copyrights are in full force.

My questions...
-- Is there any responsibility or liability for the university or the
third-party MOOC provider for these links being publicly posted (and reposted
several times) on their official course website??  The university did not post
these links, they were posted by students.  Does the university or MOOC
provider need to monitor such activity?
-- What is Google's liability?  Are they allowing copyrighted material to be
posted on their applications?  I believe that a student tried to post a
copyrighted film onto YouTube and it did not last long.   The older films were
freely available on YouTube.  YouTube takes copyright very seriously.  How
about Google?

Thank you,
Russ

Russell Poulin
Deputy Director, Research and Analysis
WCET - WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies
rpoulin@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:rpoulin@xxxxxxxxx>
wcet.wiche.edu<http://wcet.wiche.edu/>
303-541-0305
Twitter:  wcet_info<http://twitter.com/#!/wcet_info/> and
RussPoulin<http://twitter.com/russpoulin>