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Copyright

Streaming film/video

Hampshire subscribes to the Kanopy KBASE streaming service (as well as AVON, Docuseek, and some smaller collections) which include a wide variety of documentaries, indie and foreign films, classics, and blockbuster movies.  

Please note that commercial streaming services, such as Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu are for "home use" only.   As an institution, we cannot license those commercial streaming services. 

At Hampshire, we can also digitize and stream Hampshire College Library-owned videos (from DVD or VHS) but, to comply with copyright, only if they are integral to the classroom experience of a course.  These streaming videos are only available to registered students in the course through the course's password protected Moodle site.  Faculty can find details here [add link]

In order to comply with copyright and Fair Use, our policy on this is as follows:

  1. We will digitize video for active course use only.
  2. We restrict access to only the students in the class for the term of the class.
  3. We put the physical DVD/VHS item on library reserve for the duration of the streaming access.
  4. Faculty must acknowledge that the item is integral to their class (and they must do this each term of re­use). If an item is only recommended viewing for the class, but not integral, we will put the DVD/VHS on reserve as an alternative to streaming.
  5. We will digitize only items that we own in the Hampshire College Library collection.  We will not obtain interlibrary loan videos (including from the Five College Consortium) for the purpose of streaming.
  6. Hampshire College Library licenses Kanopy, AVON, and Docuseek (& others) as sources of streaming video content and searches those before digitizing locally. If we do not own/already license a video needed for a class, we will make every attempt to purchase a copy. Faculty should request we purchase items that we do not already own and that are not available through one of the streaming services to which we subscribe.
  7. If it is not possible for us to acquire the DVD/VHS or streaming rights to a title that is integral to a class, we will digitize a departmentally­owned or faculty-­owned title (as a matter of last resort) under the following conditions:
     
    • the copyright holder grants permission to the faculty member in writing
      OR
    • the department and/or faculty member is willing to have their DVD/VHS put on physical reserve for the duration of the streaming access

      AND

      the faculty member actively asserts that the departmentally­-owned/faculty­-owned item has been BOTH legally made AND legally acquired. We document these assertions and keep a record of all electronic communication surrounding the request, including documentation of our inability to locate an available copy for purchase.
       
  8. We do not stream instructional videos (videos that are intended for classroom sale).

Section 108 of the U.S. Code includes provisions for libraries and archives to make replacement copies of published works in their collections if the work is "damaged, deteriorating, lost or stolen, or if the existing format in which the work is stored has become obsolete".  It is (unfortunately!) not yet legally settled as to whether VHS is truly "obsolete".  We will stream from VHS when the use meets our policy criteria, because we can control authentication and restrict further redistribution through Moodle.  We will not reformat VHS onto DVD.