Many of these services expressly prohibit streaming movies outside of the home, as the services are intended for personal use only. I know that Netflix, and maybe a couple of others, allows for the "one-time" viewing of original content, usually documentaries, within the classroom. This is further complicated because many titles are only available on these specific services.
There is also an equity issue regarding the account used for these various services. If three faculty members teach English 101 and they want to show the movie "X" in their class and that title is ONLY available on - insert stream service - and only one of them has an account with that service, does their account now need to be shared with the other two teachers? Again, no "institutional" accounts are available from these services that the school could maintain because these services are intended for personal, private use.
Several years ago, we moved to digitizing our entire DVD and VHS collection and making it available to faculty within the classroom and ONLY within the school using a PLEX media server. We maintain a physical copy of each of the titles we have digitized and have software on these servers that monitors the number of simultaneous streams. We have a copy of the usage license for titles available in digital format only.
Think of this as having a copy of the movie "X" held by the English department and used in each of the three classes - as in the other example above. When a teacher wants to show it, they would need that physical copy of the movie to show in the class. By monitoring the streams, we can determine use and, if required, will have multiple copies of this title held.
We went in this direction as we have deployed AppleTVs in each classroom for AirPlay, and by using PLEX, we can move away from having to maintain physical players. While this doesn't solve the streaming service problem, it does make movies more easily accessible in the classroom. When a teacher needs a new movie, we have them purchase a physical copy, digitize it, put it in the PLEX server library, and maintain that physical copy. We DO NOT digitize personal copies of movies a teacher owns and wants to keep; we MUST retain ownership of that copy.
There is much to unpack with what we are doing, and I have presented this multiple times over the years. I would be happy to talk more directly with anyone interested in this.
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William Stites
Montclair Kimberley Academy
Montclair NJ
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-09-2025 09:59 AM
From: Dan Crowley
Subject: How are schools handling teacher personal streaming accounts?
We have seen an increase in tech requests to support teacher's streaming of Netflix/Hulu content to their classes (some pedagogically sound, some not). It seems clear that this is a violation of the terms of service from the streaming companies and could also be violating fair use copyright laws as well.
We are looking into a swank subscription but I am interested in learning if schools have policies in place regulating the use of these streaming services.
Thanks,
Dan
#TeachingandLearning
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Dan Crowley
Friends' Central School
Wynnewood PA
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