How do you.....explain to a teacher what is legal and illegal.....

[GREED]

Just because it can be a dinosaur, doesn't mean you should ignore the rules set by it.

 

Agree totally!

[gsk]

Both...

 

No. It's not for profit, it's for a school, for kids to learn.

 

One of the schools I work at had the students put together a video promoting the school and would show it to parents as an introduction type thing. Someone brought up the copyright thing and so I was tasked with getting the copyright for the backing track. It was atrack that went really nicely with the video, the students could relate to it and it added a bit to the video that you can't really get with some generic copyright free music.

 

I set about it and found that you have to contact the label that holds the licence to it rather than the artist. Then I found out that the artist changed labels and some songs but not others had the copyright transferred to the new label. Once I had figured out which label held the copyright, I tried to get in touch with them. Any form of contact was a complete nightmare. In the end I found a number that went straight through to the label. Great. I spoke to someone who told me that their parent company Universal deals with licensing. They gave me a number but that person had left. So I contacted Universal Licencing directly and kept getting forwarded to their American office who said that it was the UK branch I needed to deal with. Then after 2 weeks of pestering I got through to someone who specifically deals with copyright for education in the UK. For video. He said he knew who could help with music and gave me their number. They said it wasn't their job but they'd look into it for me.

 

2 Weeks later I got an email reply saying that they would licence the track for internal use on DVD media for 2 years for a maximum audience of 250 (open evening) for £4,000. If we wanted the video on our website, we'd have to pay more. If we wanted to send DVDs home to parents, we'd have to pay more. If we wanted students to be able to see the video over the network, we'd have to pay more.................

 

Is it any wonder that so many people decide it just isn't worth it? There was no profit to be made by anyone and was just a showcase of student collaboration. £4,000.

[HarryMonkey]

Theft is theft, irrespective of what you want to use it for or whether there is a profit to be made or not.

[GREED]

This is how the people who make the videos or track make money. Royalties. And however it is bought or shown, they are due the money (rightly or wrongly).

 

I think really end of the day, thems the rules!

[somabc]

Theft is theft, irrespective of what you want to use it for or whether there is a profit to be made or not.

 

copyright infringement is not theft!

 

(and Piracy is a war-like act committed by private parties (not affiliated with any government) that engage in acts of robbery and/or criminal violence at sea.)

 

I think we should follow Russia's lead on this. Downloading music and films for home use is legal due to exception provided by section 1273 of Russian Federation Civil Code. A special 1% compensatory levy intended for copyright owners is collected from the price of certain goods (like computers or clean CD-RW disks).

Edited November 25, 2010 by somabc

[HarryMonkey]

So how would you define it then? Using a piece of work and refusing to pay for it?

[localzuk]

No. It's not for profit, it's for a school, for kids to learn.

 

One of the schools I work at had the students put together a video promoting the school and would show it to parents as an introduction type thing. Someone brought up the copyright thing and so I was tasked with getting the copyright for the backing track. It was atrack that went really nicely with the video, the students could relate to it and it added a bit to the video that you can't really get with some generic copyright free music.

 

I set about it and found that you have to contact the label that holds the licence to it rather than the artist. Then I found out that the artist changed labels and some songs but not others had the copyright transferred to the new label. Once I had figured out which label held the copyright, I tried to get in touch with them. Any form of contact was a complete nightmare. In the end I found a number that went straight through to the label. Great. I spoke to someone who told me that their parent company Universal deals with licensing. They gave me a number but that person had left. So I contacted Universal Licencing directly and kept getting forwarded to their American office who said that it was the UK branch I needed to deal with. Then after 2 weeks of pestering I got through to someone who specifically deals with copyright for education in the UK. For video. He said he knew who could help with music and gave me their number. They said it wasn't their job but they'd look into it for me.

 

2 Weeks later I got an email reply saying that they would licence the track for internal use on DVD media for 2 years for a maximum audience of 250 (open evening) for £4,000. If we wanted the video on our website, we'd have to pay more. If we wanted to send DVDs home to parents, we'd have to pay more. If we wanted students to be able to see the video over the network, we'd have to pay more.................

 

Is it any wonder that so many people decide it just isn't worth it? There was no profit to be made by anyone and was just a showcase of student collaboration. £4,000.

 

So, you wanted to publish a video promoting the school - which is effectively a commercial video, not an educational video - and expected cheap prices? Not going to happen. Why should a school get preferential treatment for creating adverts when it was someone else's effort that went into creating the song in the first place?

 

If you had been doing a video which was purely educational then you'd've been covered by existing copyright exceptions ie. 'fair dealing' which allows such things to be used in an educational establishment.

[somabc]

So how would you define it then? Using a piece of work and refusing to pay for it?

 

I would call it copyright infringement.

 

A Guide to Copyright Licensing in Schools

[HarryMonkey]

Still amounts to the same thing.

[kili]

The amount of Music CD's that people bring in to put on the system is unbeleivable. I crack down every few months or so, then they reappear despite me telling them about copyright issues. I've also explained that we as a school are unlicensed to watch DVD's in classroom's. It still goes on 4 years after me telling them...

 

I don't have that problem I run a script every night which deletes all the following file extensions from every folder on our data drive.

 

*.com *.bat *.flv *.avi *.qt *.msi *.zip *.tmp *.exe *.mp3 *.mp4 *.m4p *.mpa *.wma *.temp *.acc *.cda *.mpeg *.mov *.wmv *.wma *.asx *.mpg *.asf *.wav *.m3u *.m4a *.m4v *.mpg *.bak *.xbk *.au

 

I have a separate script which runs every 30 minutes for those smart ass teachers who think it's funny to copy stuff over every morning knowing it wont be deleted until later that day.

 

set up a batch file to deal with these buggers

Edited November 25, 2010 by kili

[GREED]

I don't have that problem I run a script every night which deletes all the following file extensions from every folder on our data drive.

 

*.com *.bat *.flv *.avi *.qt *.msi *.zip *.tmp *.exe *.mp3 *.mp4 *.m4p *.mpa *.wma *.temp *.acc *.cda *.mpeg *.mov *.wmv *.wma *.asx *.mpg *.asf *.wav *.m3u *.m4a *.m4v *.mpg *.bak *.xbk *.au

 

I have a separate script which runs every 30 minutes for those smart ass teachers who think it's funny to copy stuff over every morning knowing it wont be deleted until later that day.

 

set up a batch file to deal with these buggers

 

Hash file those file types on your network drives, that will prevent them from having them at all.

[mjs_mjs]

Hash file those file types on your network drives, that will prevent them from having them at all.

 

what about if they're used legitimately for education and without breaching copyright?

[GREED]

We had a drive that was read write for all, that was sacrificial and was known to be wiped without notice. If there was genuine need for those files we created secure locations they could be copied to.

[kili]

Hash file those file types on your network drives, that will prevent them from having them at all.

 

How do you generate a hash file for a given program type? I was under the impression a hash file can be generated for a particular program or file only.

 

I'd be interested to know how you do this

[jcollings]

I don't have that problem I run a script every night which deletes all the following file extensions from every folder on our data drive.

 

*.com *.bat *.flv *.avi *.qt *.msi *.zip *.tmp *.exe *.mp3 *.mp4 *.m4p *.mpa *.wma *.temp *.acc *.cda *.mpeg *.mov *.wmv *.wma *.asx *.mpg *.asf *.wav *.m3u *.m4a *.m4v *.mpg *.bak *.xbk *.au

 

I have a separate script which runs every 30 minutes for those smart ass teachers who think it's funny to copy stuff over every morning knowing it wont be deleted until later that day.

 

set up a batch file to deal with these buggers

 

We have plenty of those file types used quite legally including lesson resources, students work etc - how do you deal with that?

[soveryapt]

If you had been doing a video which was purely educational then you'd've been covered by existing copyright exceptions ie. 'fair dealing' which allows such things to be used in an educational establishment.

 

You would only be covered if:

a) the material was only going to be used in the classroom

b) the material being used is of an educational benefit to that lesson (so not just because they want to listen to the latest A.N.Other's Album)

c) the material has not been transferred from it's original media or, if it has, you hold the relevant license to do so

d) that no members of the public are present in the classroom (so only pupils with the relevant staff members)

 

I looked into this whole situation with regards to our reception video screen, and like has been pointed out, if I wanted to license a track, I could do, but it would cost £1000's per track I wanted, money we can't afford, but as a musician I fully understand why those charges are there, it would be nice if there was some reduction for education, and there probably would be if more people actually took the time to obtain the correct licenses instead of just using tracks, they still have to raise the same amount of money for the "sweep-stake" style royalties (x many people have licensed this track or type of track so there are this many of those tracks covered divided by that number of people, giving some sort of figure that is reasonable - this is in comparison to the big players who have to log every track and submit reports back (BBC Radio for one)).

 

As it stands, if it's illegal you shouldn't be doing it - FULL STOP - be it personal or professional, you certainly shouldn't be doing it professionally, but then you also get into the realms of who uses VLC as a player to handle everything - complete with it's illegal MPEG Decoders in there? MPEG Encoders are a licensable beast and as such, should only be used with the relevant license in place.

 

It is a very hard situation to be able to do things all above board, especially with all the current cuts going on, but where possible we should, as professionals, be striving to set the example of only doing legal activities, as, after-all, who are we to tell staff something is illegal if what we are doing in our roles as Techy Bods is also illegal (see the VLC reference above). I had one school that held 4 licenses for office, yet had it installed on all 46 of the machines in the school. I let this ride for a little while whilst I collected all the information on the license situation across the other software, and it wasn't until I put the case to the head that either I install Open Office across the site and remove Office, which would require some training for staff, or we buy in the correct number of licenses for the software for the school (MSO was only one example .. there were others, and I basically stripped the computers of anything like that, as I do at the school I'm at now).

 

Anyway, [/RANT]

 

Andy

[GREED]

We have plenty of those file types used quite legally including lesson resources, students work etc - how do you deal with that?

 

Set up locations or drives where this can be stored that can be exceptions to blocks or deletions scripts

[GREED]

How do you generate a hash file for a given program type? I was under the impression a hash file can be generated for a particular program or file only.

 

I'd be interested to know how you do this

 

I'll dig out my notes I have not worked with it for about a year, and even then it was my network engineer that did the deed. Wildcard characters maybe?

[jcollings]

Set up locations or drives where this can be stored that can be exceptions to blocks or deletions scripts

 

But then if people want to use illegal stuff they'll just put it in those secure locations. The point I am making is that it is very difficult to delete those kind of files and sort out legit work from illegal stuff by using the method describes. You could just as easily delete some kids coursework for music as an illegal track.

[GREED]

But then if people want to use illegal stuff they'll just put it in those secure locations. The point I am making is that it is very difficult to delete those kind of files and sort out legit work from illegal stuff by using the method describes. You could just as easily delete some kids coursework for music as an illegal track.

 

Then user awareness gets added into the mix. We had a policy to delete (with roll back available, obviously) suspect files without notice. Staff have to realise in particular that this should not be a constant running battle, thems the rules!

 

I think at the end of the day, the bottom line is that like it or not is illegal and needs to be stopped, excuses will not save the individual or school from prosecution should it come to that.

Edited November 25, 2010 by GREED
more thoughts

[soveryapt]

Then user awareness gets added into the mix. We had a policy to delete (with roll back available, obviously) suspect files without notice. Staff have to realise in particular that this should not be a constant running battle, thems the rules!

 

I think at the end of the day, the bottom line is that like it or not is illegal and needs to be stopped, excuses will not save the individual or school from prosecution should it come to that.

 

One way around all of this would be for the staff to submit, either on paper / e-mail / helpdesk, whichever is easiest, with a list of tracks they have put into the area and a reason as to why they are in there. That way, you do the delete, with rollback like you say, and basically, if the file isn't on the list that you have, then the file gets deleted. If their information includes "Take That - The Flood" then they have to all the relevant information in place as to why it's in there, permissions, etc. Ok, it means you have to check a list / put exceptions into your script etc, but the pain in the arse of paperwork it will make for staff should hopefully mean that you only have tracks in there that really are that important!

[kili]

We have plenty of those file types used quite legally including lesson resources, students work etc - how do you deal with that?

 

We don't use any of those file types for lessons. Movie files are not permitted on the servers as playing movies without having a streaming media server just brings the servers to a crawl. If anyone wants to play music they do so from thier USB sticks or external drives.

Edited November 25, 2010 by kili

[GREED]

One way around all of this would be for the staff to submit, either on paper / e-mail / helpdesk, whichever is easiest, with a list of tracks they have put into the area and a reason as to why they are in there. That way, you do the delete, with rollback like you say, and basically, if the file isn't on the list that you have, then the file gets deleted. If their information includes "Take That - The Flood" then they have to all the relevant information in place as to why it's in there, permissions, etc. Ok, it means you have to check a list / put exceptions into your script etc, but the pain in the arse of paperwork it will make for staff should hopefully mean that you only have tracks in there that really are that important!

 

Sounds good. Without strong messages from IT management, staff are not going to 'want' to follow these rules, so consequences have be strong. Often in the early stages this means some additional work, but in time once a system is place and staff learn, it becomes second nature.

[Roberto]

I think we should follow Russia's lead on this. Downloading music and films for home use is legal due to exception provided by section 1273 of Russian Federation Civil Code. A special 1% compensatory levy intended for copyright owners is collected from the price of certain goods (like computers or clean CD-RW disks).

 

I wouldn't mind the UK trying that, but in the meantime, in our professional capacity at least, we should certainly be sticking with the rules and laws we have, not the ones we wish we had.

[somabc]

Still amounts to the same thing.

 

Lets call it murder then instead shall we.

 

"A man was found to have committed murder 11 times yesterday when he copied his CD onto his ipod"