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  • 1.  How are schools handling teacher personal streaming accounts?

    Posted 01-09-2025 10:00 AM
    Edited by Dan Crowley 01-09-2025 10:02 AM

    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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  • 2.  RE: How are schools handling teacher personal streaming accounts?

    Posted 01-09-2025 11:27 AM

    Hi Dan,

    This is always a difficult issue.  I have long argued that teachers may not use their personal subscriptions to Amazon Prime, Disney, Netflix, Hulu, etc. to show movies or other streamed content in the classroom.  It gets muddy when someone "purchases/rents" a movie for streaming, as they would have done when DVDs were more common.  I think that is different than just logging into a streaming service, so I have often said it's OK to purchase the movie to view in class when it is directly related to the curriculum (avoiding the public performance license requirement).  We have a Swank license, and while that helps, it often doesn't have the titles the teachers want to show.

    I purchased the 2021 edition of Copyright for Schools - A Practial Guide to educate myself about what is appropriate. I have found this helpful in understanding the law and different applications.  We don't have a written policy, but I do speak with the librarians often because they seem to be the folks who are well-versed in copyright law. 

    Best,

    Susan



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    Susan Fuhs, Director of IT Services
    Norfolk Academy
    Norfolk VA
    swfuhs@norfolkacademy.org
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  • 3.  RE: How are schools handling teacher personal streaming accounts?

    Posted 01-10-2025 07:38 AM

    Hi Dan, 

    This is an ongoing challenge for us as well.  We have a Swank subscription and partner closely with our librarians to help encourage the right behavior, but we still have many teachers and after school care teams using personal accounts.  When they need technical support, we point them to the correct channels (Swank), but we haven't gone draconian and blocked the services. 

    Thank you, 



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    Brent Halsey
    Columbus Academy
    Gahanna OH
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  • 4.  RE: How are schools handling teacher personal streaming accounts?

    Posted 01-10-2025 08:49 AM

    As others here mention, this one is tough. We have a Swank license as well and our Library does a lot to educate teachers and help plan movies for their curriculum. We also allow our Arts department to purchase movies via departmental AppleID so long as they've been written into the curriculum for various classes and are clearly fair use. Further, we clear out any accounts logged into our AppleTVs regularly, both for general security and copyright compliance purposes. Such is the nature of the struggle. Legally, it's a tough position for all. Working with faculty and the admin teams regularly to provide empathy for their challenge as well as the most reasonable technical solutions is critical. It's easy for faculty members to feel artificially hindered when so many other schools just use streaming services freely regardless of the violation. Either out of ignorance or disregard.



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    Chris Hafner
    Brewster Academy
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  • 5.  RE: How are schools handling teacher personal streaming accounts?

    Posted 01-10-2025 08:56 AM

    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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  • 6.  RE: How are schools handling teacher personal streaming accounts?

    Posted 01-10-2025 09:13 AM

    I love Plex... but the extra hard part is that legally, schools need to digitize the content in a way that doesn't violate the DMCA by decrypting the media directly. I believe the only currently supported method recommended is to literally screen-record the movies. 



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    Chris Hafner
    Brewster Academy
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  • 7.  RE: How are schools handling teacher personal streaming accounts?

    Posted 01-10-2025 12:29 PM

    I won't open it sadly, based on it is against Netflix and Hulu's agreement.  I wish they had a school account.  We use Swank as well and it is limited and doesn't have some of the rich content that the streamers offer.  I believe that teachers have worked around this a few times by downloading content but I am not certain and again, it is directly against the agreement.  



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    Beverly Byrd
    Visitation Academy
    St. Louis MO
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