Hi all,

Agreed with Brent regarding a cease and desist order coming long before any
legal action, and agreed with Simon that under Aereo, and previous
decisions, streaming is a performance and not distribution. FWIW I'm fairly
certain that between the educational exemption for performance and display
(Section 110(1)) and the fair use test (Section 107) libraries are on solid
ground when streaming video through a third-party app (aren't you always
through a browser?). The portion of the video saved temporarily on your
local device is not infringement - the Cablevision decision carved out
space for that and I don't believe Aereo changed that. Aereo was more about
how transparently and frankly cynically they were adhering to the letter
and not the spirit of the law to get around transmission fees, not whether
caching is an act of piracy.

If Kodi is simply providing a platform for accessing streaming content that
is either made free on the web or for which the library has purchased an
appropriate license/subscription (i.e. institutional not individual use),
using Kodi or XBMC or some other tool as a discovery tool seems
non-problematic.

Dave


On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 2:30 AM, Brent Hanner <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>
> Sorry this took so long but been having a bunch of computer problems.
>
> Instead of trying to reply to bits of this I’m going to try to be more
> comprehensive.
>
>
>
>
> First thing is to understand a few things.
>
> The streaming aspect is far less important than where you are transfering
> it from and to.
>
> You have far more flexibility within the building then you do publicly
> over the internet.  Just as an individual for personal use has more
> flexibility than a public corporation.  This is where Areo tried to slide
> in and the Court disagreed with them.
>
> And libraries tend to fall somewhere in there having special exemptions to
> copyright granted by Congress but the laws don’t cover modern technical
> details.
>
>
>
>
> As long as you act in good faith you or your library will not get sued for
> two reasons.
>
> Firstly standard operating procedure is to send a cease and desist
> letter.  So if you do skirt the limits realize it can happen and comply and
> then tell us what you did and what it said so the broader library community
> can decide where they stand.
>
> Secondly one of the last things a major content company wants is to sue a
> library.  One thing that was clearly shown during surveys of people over
> the last few years is that while lots of people don’t actively use their
> library the public support for them is still very high.
>
> Thirdly they don’t want to sue a library because if they lose every
> library in the country will know what it can and cannot implement.  And if
> they win they will face a legislative fight to expand what libraries can
> do.  They are served far better by there not being clear rules, especially
> because librarians fear far more than they should.
>
>
>
>
> Part of this sort of thing in the long run is about managing bandwidth,
> with streaming video sucking up more and more bandwidth finding ways of
> controlling it will be useful.  Luckily Netflix has been working on an
> appliance to help everyone with this but I’d imagine it will be a few years
> before it gets down to a library level unless someone comes up with a
> completely open source solution we can implement ourselves.
>
>
> Someone mentioned network TV which brings up the really interesting
> space.  There is an argument to be made that providing access to access to
> content freely available to the public.  While you clearly could not stream
> it to other locations the software and hardware is readily available.  So
> the question is does anyone know of any court cases or LOC/copyright
> guidelines from back in the days of VCR about libraries recording shows on
> video tape and providing access to those tapes.
>
>
> The other thing to consider as a community is developing a catalog of
> videos that would be good to keep on servers in libraries that can be
> downloaded so they are more readily accessible without killing the
> libraries bandwidth.
>
>
>
>
>
> Brent
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Sent from Windows Mail
>
>
>
>
>
> From: Cornel Darden Jr.
> Sent: ‎Tuesday‎, ‎December‎ ‎2‎, ‎2014 ‎8‎:‎59‎ ‎PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
>
> Hello,
>
> Is streaming (viewing online) copyrighted material illegal for
> individuals. According to the copyright.gov website this seems to be
> completely legal for the viewer when there isn't a copy of the work on the
> viewers computer. It only mentions hosting streams as being a misdemeanor,
> even if there isn't any profit.
>
> This is becoming a huge issue as more content consumers become cord
> cutters. Has any librarians faced these questions?
>
> I am planning on implementing Kodi in my library, but will only make
> public domain material accessible. Kodi provides an excellent user
> interface for organizing and viewing public domain material.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Cornel Darden Jr.
> MSLIS
> Library Department Chair
> South Suburban College
> 7087052945
>
> "Our Mission is to Serve our Students and the Community through lifelong
> learning."
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>