• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, February 3, 2010

A trade group that represents educational film producers is complaining that schools are infringing the producers' copyright by digitizing and streaming their videos.

The Association for Information Media and Equipment recently demanded that UCLA stop converting the videos into a streaming format and making them available to students on password-protected intranet sites. Allen Dohra, president of the organization, says that UCLA and other schools who use the group's instructional videos should purchase licenses to do so -- some of which are available for as little as $25 a year.

"We're an organization of educational film producers. It's not a lucrative market," Dohra says. "We pretty much do what we do because we love what we do. We'd like to make a living at it as well."

Dohra adds that his organization has flagged several other schools as potential copyright infringers.

Earlier this year, UCLA suspended its five-year-old streaming video service in an attempt to resolve its differences with the trade group. But campus spokesman Phil Hampton says the school believes it has the legal right to make the videos available on its intranet under both fair use principles and the federal Teach act -- which specifically provides for digital video to be streamed under some circumstances.

He adds that many of the school's instructors incorporate videos into their curriculum. For instance, he says, the teacher of a foreign language class might have students view a movie in that language. "The use of technology for instructional purposes has broadened significantly beyond students' face-to-face contact -- and this trade group is in effect challenging that," Hampton says.