Scenario

A faculty member records a segment of the evening news on her home VCR and the next day shows the recording to her class. Afterward she selects a 2 minute clip from the segment to burn onto DVD for future classroom presentations.

Response

Off-air videorecording is subject to the same copyright considerations that any other media used in classroom instruction would be. News broadcasts are copyrighted, usually by the producing network. Before using home recordings in a classroom presentation instructors should conduct a thorough four factor analyis to determine if fair use might apply to the circumstances.

In this particular instance the faculty member may find that her initial use of the recording is a fair use. But any subsequent use, even the short 2 minute clip, would require another four factor analysis. Circumstances surrounding any use can change over time. For example, the network may later make the segment available commercially, on DVD. This condition could compel the faculty member to purchase the DVD from the network rather than rely on her homemade DVD copy for instructional use. In general anolog to digital conversions are not permitted when content is commercially available in digital formats.