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Posted on 05/07/2009 2:11:41 PM PDT by dangerdoc
So the Copyright Office is currently in the middle reviewing proposed exceptions to the DMCA, and one of the proposals on the table would allow teachers and students to rip DVDs and edit them for use in the classroom. Open and shut, right? Not if you're the MPAA and gearing up to litigate the legality of ripping -- it's trying to convince the rulemaking committee that videotaping a flatscreen is an acceptable alternative. Seriously. It's hard to say if we've ever seen an organization make a more tone-deaf, flailing argument than this.
Take a good look, kids. This is what an industry looks like right before it dies. Video after the break
Thank you for catching the similarity in the arguments.
I think you are right. It’s as if they confused videotaping a broadcast under the fair use act, with videotaping a TV display of a copyrighted DVD.
I’m not sure exactly what the rules under the fair use act are. I would think if you only have an excerpt of a broadcast you are using for educational means, that could probably use it in a class, but I’m not certain. But I don’t think you could ever use even an excerpt from a copyrighted DVD without permission.
TV's are a poor medium for this anyway. I prefer to integrate the digital video into a multimedia presentation that is then displayed via data projector onto a large screen. As for whether the educational system would be better if the use of multimedia were removed and the students had to sit in the class for hours listening to the teacher lecture and take notes, you will probably find a lot of technological Luddites who hold that view, but it is rather ironic and amusing to see it being expressed on an internet forum where people copy articles for discussion and often post images and hyperlinks to add either information or humor to the discussion.
If I had more time, I'd find a link to the scene from Ferris Beuller's Day Off where Ben Stein is lecturing his class on the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and the Great Depression as an illustration of the type of classroom environment you seem to be advocating.
“My opinion that school instruction is full of expensive, high-tech crap is irrelevant to how my Congresscritter, Mrs. Myrick, votes on things like this. In fact, I have no idea how she votes, because I’m much more interested in her positions on national defense and immigration.”
A DVD player ($35) and TV ($200) rolled from classroom to classroom is “expensive and high tech”?
And once again, to dispute your point, much less TIME (and time is money) is spent in showing this video on a less than $250 total equipment cost SHARED expense than having the teacher recite it.
I disagree.
There are plenty of times that a TV show is a valid teaching tool.
“If I had more time, I’d find a link to the scene from Ferris Beuller’s Day Off where Ben Stein is lecturing his class on the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and the Great Depression as an illustration of the type of classroom environment you seem to be advocating. “
OH OH OH EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!!!
The internet already makes this irrelevant.
And as long as you ask (and get) permission, you can present copyrighted works in schools.
It’s not a Luddite view, it’s looking at how the tool is misused as a crutch to replace skill. I got stuck watching Dr Zhivago 3 times in 12 months (sophomore English, global studies, and junior English), what is there really to learn from Dr Zhivago once, much less 3 times?! And that’s pretty typical of TV in the classroom.
As for “multimedia presentations” forget about it Power Point is a blight used to cover for poor speaking ability. It’s used to cover for lack of ability, it’s a tool for people that probably shouldn’t be publicly speaking in the first place to play to a dark room with people looking somewhere else.
There’s nothing wrong with students listening to lectures and taking notes. That’s how you actually learn anyway, it’s well known that some level of active participation (like writing things down and asking questions) assists the learning process, darkened rooms for TV or Power Point discourage and avoid active participation, and thus specifically avoid learning.
The fact that you want to post a video of a comedy scene about a bad lecturer just accidentally proved my point. Yes there are bad lecturers in the world, and if you really pay attention to the scene you’ll notice he’s just like a TV, no active participation from the students. The classroom I’m advocating is nothing like that, people who can’t give a good lecture shouldn’t teach, the crutch of TVs doesn’t make good lecturers, it just gives them somewhere to hide.
I’d forgotten how fashed people get over this. Y’all have a nice evening.
There are SOME times, but most of the time it’s just a crutch for poor teachers. Off the top of my head one time I can think of the TV being actually useful was in American Government, the teacher found a PBS series of round table discussions on various Constitutional points. The show was useful because it presented about a dozen views on each episode, also the teacher didn’t do the typical turn off lights-turn on TV, go sit down; it took us two or three class sessions to get through each 1 hour episode because he would pause it to add his own point and open up class room discussion. In that style the TV can be useful, but that’s so rarely the method used, most of the time it’s turn on the TV and turn off the teacher.
Some on this thread have expressed the idea that there is no "need" for the use of video in the classroom, or that the educational process would be "better" if such video were excluded from the classroom altogether. For every "lazy" teacher that misuses such tools, there are probably more that are good teachers who want to enhance the learning experience of their students by embracing technology, and using it to engage the students, stimulate participative learning, and illustrate concepts in a way that makes them memorable.
The topic of discussion, as always happens, has deviated from the start point. On the original point, the MPAA is always trying to over limit people’s ability to make copies of stuff, usually to down right psychotic levels.
I’m in the crowd that says there’s no need for video in the classroom. In my schooling experience (which was admittedly a long time ago) the lazy (no quotes that’s the simple reality) teachers misusing video FAR FAR out number the good teachers enhancing the learning experience, I was being very generous by giving good video usage a 10% probability. Most don’t use it to engage the student, stimulate participative learning, or illustrate anything, they use it to get to sit down and not talk. All the way through schooling AV, even when AV was a film strip and cassette, was basically used as teacher vacation day.
That is painfully brilliant.
The Discovery Channel allows taping of their programs at about 6 AM every day, just for schools. Of course they don’t disallow us little people.
I acknowledge that it CAN be used for good teaching, I saw it done. But I just don’t think teachers have gotten that much better, given how Power Point has ruined business presentations I’d even hazard a guess they’ve gotten worse. the post I originally replied to mentioned watching TV twice a week, I’m hoping that’s across multiple classes or at least a high school style 5 day a week class rather than college style 2 day a week class, because otherwise that’s just plain a lazy teacher.
The problem generally boils down to interactive. We know the less interactive the class situation the less the students will learn, it’s just part of the human condition. And the way AV of all types tends to be used it’s generally less interactive than a lecture format, which means less will be learned during that class session. And trying to maintain interactivity when using a TV is fighting one of the basic aspects of the device, we know TVs encourage brain disengaged semi-sleep state.
One aspect of fair use is that you don't need permission. Copyright isn't absolute and wasn't written into the Constitution to be so. It is supposed to be limited, and granted only enough to give encouragement to publish more works, the end goal being the public good, not the publisher's.
“Anyone? Anyone?”
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