A Copyright Guide to Rapidly Shifting Your In-Person Class Online

There are a lot of pedagogical and technical issues that make the shift from in-person to online teaching challenging, but for once, copyright is not a big additional area of worry! Most of the legal issues are the same in both contexts. If it was okay to do in class, it is often okay to do online, especially when your online access is limited to the same enrolled students.

A good place to start is with this page in combination with the library guide titled “Course Materials and Copyright for Professors,” which contains information about how to legally share materials with your students. And please know that fair use is (as usual) an option and an amplified option in these difficulty times. In fact, there is now a public statement by Copyright Librarians Re-Affirming the Right to Fair Use in these Emergency Circumstances. The document is titled Public Statement: Fair Use & Emergency Remote Teaching & Research.

(This document is evolving and subject to change. Last updated March 11, 2020.)

Recording video of yourself, live-casting lectures, etc.

Slide Images

If it was legal to show slide images in class, it is likely legal to show them to students via live video conferencing or in recorded videos. This may be a surprise if you have heard that there is a big difference between class lecture slides and online conference slides – but the issue is usually less offline versus online, than a restricted versus an unrestricted audience. As long as your new course video is being shared through course websites limited to the same enrolled students, the legal issues are fairly similar.

Many instructors routinely post a copy of their slides as a file for students to access after in-person course meetings, which also likely doesn’t present any new issues after online course meetings.

In-lecture use of audio or video

Here, the differences between online and in-person teaching can be a bit more complex. Playing audio or video off of physical media during an in-person class session is 100% legal at the University of Illinois under a provision of copyright law called the “Classroom Use Exemption.” However, that exemption does not apply to those wishing to play media clips online. If you can limit audio and video use for your course to relatively brief clips, you may be able to include those in lecture recordings or live-casts under the copyright provision called fair use. For media use longer than brief clips, you may need to have students independently access the content outside of your lecture videos. The legal issues involved in showing media clips in an online course are outlined in the article written by our copyright librarian titled “The Copyright Implications of Teachings with Videos.”

Where to post your videos

There may be some practical differences in outcomes depending on where you post new course videos – on the University’s Kaltura platform it is easy to control access at the level of individual videos, and to connect to your course in Canvas. You also can post video to YouTube via your UIUC Google account, and the same basic legal provisions apply even on YouTube. However, it is more likely that videos posted on YouTube may encounter some automated copyright enforcement, such as a take-down notice, or disabling of included audio or video content. These automated enforcement tools are often incorrect when they flag audio, video, or images included in instructional videos – if you encounter something like this that you believe to be in error, you can contact srbenson@illinois.edu for assistance.

Course readings and other resources

Hopefully, by mid-semester, your students have already gotten access to all assigned reading materials.

If you want to share additional materials with students yourself as you revise instructional plans, or if you want students to share more resources with each other in an online discussion board, keep in mind some simple guidelines:

It’s always easiest to link!

Linking to publicly available online content like news websites, existing online videos, etc is rarely a copyright issue. (Better not to link to existing content that looks obviously infringing itself – for instance, a random YouTube video of the entire “Black Panther” movie is probably not a reliable link. But Sara Someone’s 2-minute video of herself and her best friend talking over a few of the pivotal scenes may be fair use, and is not something you should worry about linking to.)

Linking to subscription content through the Libraries is also a great option – a lot of our subscription content will have DOIs, PURLs, or other “permalink” options, all of which should work even for off-campus users. For help understanding how to link to any particular libraries subscription content, see this library guide about sharing persistent links to library materials.

Sharing copies

Making copies of new materials for students (by downloading and uploading files, or by scanning from physical documents) can present some copyright issues, but they’re not different from those involved in deciding whether to share something online with your students when you are meeting in-person. It’s better not to make copies of entire works – but most instructors don’t do that! Copying portions of works to share with students will often be a fair use. The copyright librarian has created a video explaining fair use that is available at https://go.illinois.edu/fairusevideo.

Instructors make their own decisions about whether they think a specific use is a fair use when making copies for students. The copyright librarian can help you understand the relevant issues (contact srbenson@illinois.edu).

Where an instructor does not feel comfortable relying on fair use, a subject specialist librarian may be able to suggest alternative content that is already online through library subscriptions, or publicly online content.

Multimedia viewing/listening

Showing an entire movie or film or musical work online may be a bit more of an issue than playing it in class – but there may be options for your students to access it independently online. The Libraries already have quite a bit of licensed streaming media options which you are welcome to use in your online course. The Libraries also already have subscriptions to a significant set of streaming audio options for UIUC users.

Ownership of online course materials

The University of Illinois Statutes affirm that faculty members and faculty-like employees own the copyright in their academic works, including instructional content (so long as it was not created with the use of University resources over and above those customarily provided, in which case the professor still owns the copyright, but licenses the use–including the right to make derivative works–to the University). Some units and departments have different policies around ownership of course video at the unit level, but you would likely already be aware of that if it is applicable. Some units may also have some shared expectations of shared -access- to course video for continuity of educational experiences, without those expectations affecting the ownership of the materials.

University policies also affirm that students own the copyright in their own coursework. Instructors can require them to submit it in particular formats, but the students continue to own their works unless a separate agreement is signed by the student.