The Daily Bulletin is published by Internal and Leadership Communications, part of University Communications
Contact us at bulletin@uwaterloo.ca
Submission guidelines
Keep copyright in mind...when you select videos to show in class
Part 2 in a four-part series from the Copyright Advisory Committee.
There’s a film that you want to show your students – how do you go about doing this while respecting copyright?
It depends on the source of the video, and how you want to show it. The Copyright Decision Tool can help you work through this. Below are a couple of examples of ways to make lawful use of film in the classroom.
For classroom showings, if you have a lawful physical copy of the film, you can show it under the Copyright Act exception for performances in educational institutions (section 29.5). IST’s Media Resources Library provides access to 9500 physical resources. You can search their catalogue, Medianet to see if they hold a copy. Any legal copy of the film will do; for example, you can use copies you own personally, or source copies from Region of Waterloo public libraries.
You can also show streamed video in the classroom, depending on the source. The IST Media Resources Library provides access to over 30,000 streaming videos, see the resources for streaming page for more information access. Videos posted to online services like YouTube or Vimeo can be used only if they’ve been posted legitimately. Videos posted by their creator or copyright owner are good candidates, for example, news reports posted by the @CBCTheNational account on YouTube. The FAQ #22, May I include links to videos from a free platform… has more information on how to assess this. Unfortunately, subscription streaming services like Disney+, Amazon Prime, or Apple TV can’t be used as their terms and conditions state their use is for personal use only. FAQ #55, May I stream an audiovisual work from a streaming website, including Netflix? contains more information.
Providing access to film outside the classroom is more complicated if the video isn’t available in streaming format. If you need students to be able to watch a film on their own time and the video isn’t available in streaming format through IST, we recommend requesting streaming access as soon as possible through the Request a new streaming license form. This will start the process to determine if the material can be provided in that format. This process is often lengthy and based on film distributor response-times, so having alternate material in mind is good practice.
Questions about the Media Library catalogue or film availability can be directed to medialib@uwaterloo.ca. If you have film and copyright questions, please reach out to copyright@uwaterloo.ca.
Remembering Distinguished Professor Emerita Jennifer Ashworth
A message from the Philosophy department.
Distinguished Professor Emerita Earline Jennifer Ashworth died on July 23 in Swansea, Wales. Born in 1939 in Britain, Professor Ashworth studied at Cambridge University and received her PhD in Philosophy from Bryn Mawr College in 1964. She joined the recently formed Philosophy Department at the University of Waterloo in 1969, and she remained an active and highly respected member of the Department until her retirement in 2005.
Professor Ashworth was an expert in medieval and Renaissance philosophy, with a particular interest in late medieval logic and philosophy of language. She authored nearly a hundred journal articles and book chapters, plus many translations, encyclopedia and academic reference entries, and three books. Among these is Professor Ashworth's flagship monograph, Language and Logic in the Post-Medieval Period. There Professor Ashworth examined the study of logic in the Renaissance intellectual world, her investigations overturning the widespread conviction that Medieval logic had been an early casualty of the Renaissance. Her outstanding research contributions were formally honoured with a Fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada in 1991.
Former students and colleagues alike remember her for her brilliance, her very high scholarly standards, and above all her intellectual generosity. Dr. Shannon Dea, now Dean of Arts at the University of Regina and formerly Professor of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo, studied under Prof. Ashworth as an undergraduate. Prof. Dea describes her as “the Platonic ideal of what I was looking for in a professor.” Current University of Waterloo Professor of Philosophy and Systems Design Engineering Chris Eliasmith, who took Prof. Ashworth’s courses as an undergraduate, credits her with his decision to study Philosophy, and praised her openness to new ideas and her “rigorous fairness.” And former colleagues all remarked on how she was curious and interested in their own research, no matter how distinct it seemed from her own area of expertise. Her generosity to junior colleagues and the example she set for her students continue to shape the Department of Philosophy at Waterloo, and indeed Philosophy departments across the country.