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Comment Wikipedia as Extra Credit (Score 1) 138

I frequently use Wikipedia article-writing as an extra credit option in college film and TV courses.

It works well, because students can fill in details on sometimes obscure, but still notable, topics -- e.g., plot summaries of films. Plus, since they're reading original sources for my courses, they can also cite those sources, as Wikipedia policy demands. They submit the URLs of the articles they've modified/created to me and I always check them for accuracy and proper wiki-style.

In addition to increasing Wikipedia's breadth/depth on film/TV topics, it encourages students to get involved in the Wikipedia-editing process.

Comment A Shame That UCLA Won't Contest This (Score 1) 134

I find it a shame that UCLA won't contest this attack on fair use, because the fair-use defense desperately needs some clarification in the context of copyrighted video being used in an educational context.

For cinema professors, it's essential that they be able to provide their primary texts (i.e., films) to students. Over the past 15-20 years, it's become clear that it is fair use for cinema educators to use film stills in PowerPoint slide shows, course Web sites, and textbooks. See, for example, Bordwell and Thompson's Film Art. Initially, however, copyright holders objected to this use of stills, wrongly claimed that it was not fair use, and demanded payment. Despite this resistance, fair-use of stills has become standard practice.

Unfortunately, there is no similar standard for fair use of moving images. And, because UCLA is not using fair use to defend the posting of (copyrighted) video in a password-protected online system open only to students, an important opportunity to set precedent has been lost.

The result will be chilling. If freakin' UCLA cannot defend the fair-use posting of videos, then what chance does the average state university or small private college have?

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