I have just bought the "Evaluation/Individual Use" version of Dan Bricklin's new video "A Developer's Introduction to Copyright and Open Source - Why a Lawyer is a Developer's Friend" for $29.95 plus shipping cost to Japan.
There is also a "Corporate Training" version that is essentially the same but priced at $695.
The description for the "Corporate Training" version says:
"The video is authorized for either viewing only by employees of the company for which it was purchased or for viewing only by the clients of the professional service firm for which it was purchased. Use for public or online viewing is not permitted."
In contrast, the "Evaluation/Individual Use" version has this description:
"This version of the video contains the same material as the corporate training one but is for use by those that want to evaluate the video before committing to the full price or for individuals that want to view the video themselves. It is authorized for viewing only by the single individual for whom it was purchased. Use for public or online viewing or training of multiple individuals is not permitted."
When buying the video over the Internet, I have not agreed to any form of license contract.
Now, what exactly keeps me from showing my "evaluation version" to one of my students?
Since there is no license contract, restricting my use to personal viewing can't be based on some contractual obligation.
That leaves copyright. When showing the video to someone, I am not reproducing the DVD, so I am not infringing on the exclusive right to reproduction under section 106 (1) of the American copyright law. There is however also the exclusive right to display the work publicly for audiovisual works in section 106 (5). That explains the part about "use for public viewing or online viewing is not permitted".
However, "training of multiple individuals" is not necessarily public display under section 106 (5). Therefore, it seems to be open to doubt if a video author can sell a video "authorized for viewing only by the single individual for whom it was purchased" under American law. And as long as strong DRM mechanisms as described in Stallman's "The Right to Read" are not in place, the author would not know about or be able to effectively prevent any non-public display of his video anyway.
In my case I would have to look at Japanese copyright law.
Japanese copyright law also gives authors an exclusive right to display the work publicly in Article 22-2. Japanese copyright law however has an exception in Article 38 paragraph 1 that allows public presentation without charging any fees. And there is another exception for use of a work in classroom in Article 35, which even extends this exception to a distance learning environment.
Therefore, under Japanese law, it would probably be reasonable to assume that I would not be violating copyright by showing the video to individual students in class.
Posted by Karl-Friedrich Lenz at May 3, 2005 12:41 PM