Film and Media Studies and the Law of the DVD

The emergence of digital versatile discs (DVDs) in 1997 revolutionized the fields of film and media studies, providing teachers ready access to an enormous catalogue of major and minor movies in a format that facilitates both classroom presentations and scholarly commentary.¹ As a result, today 16mm film is disappearing from the classroom.

But while many faculty now regard DVDs as essential to their work both as teachers and as scholars, recent adjustments in copyright law, motivated by an understandable desire to curtail film piracy, have complicated matters for them significantly. Many teachers, knowingly or not, regularly violate new legal restrictions on classroom use of DVDs. To date, the studios that own the copyrights have tolerated what are technically illegal activities. But this truce is unstable. Copyright scholars and lawmakers must work to devise some way of enabling teachers to continue to exploit this new digital technology lawfully, while simultaneously protecting the copyright owners' legitimate interests in preserving the noneducational markets for their works.

DVDs are powerful pedagogical instruments. Their most prominent use by film and media studies professors is as source material for preparing movie or television clips, which are then compiled and incorporated into classroom lectures. Professors frequently use multiple clips from each of several films or television programs in a single class period. In one introductory film course offered at a major film school, for example, as many as twenty-five individual clips were screened during a single four-hour session.² The ease of navigating DVD compilations enhances their usefulness as instructional tools. DVD compilations preserve valuable class time by permitting instantaneous movement between excerpts, in contrast to analog VHS tapes, which require manual rewind and advance, and 16mm film, a clumsy format for the presentation of short clips. Moreover, unlike videotape and 16mm film, which deteriorate with use and can be damaged by freeze-framing, DVD content maintains its quality with repeated and varied use.

In addition, professors occasionally distribute excerpts of works to students as part of the course curriculum—either by handing out physical copies, or by posting content on the Internet—often on password-protected Web sites accessible only to their own students. The most efficient way of preparing these compilations is to extract them from commercial DVDs. DVDs are faster to copy and less expensive to create than other media. They produce higher quality, more durable copies than other formats. Finally, DVD players are ubiquitous on college campuses, available on computers, in libraries, and in dormitories.

Professors who wish to distribute clips on the Internet prefer DVDs to other formats for similar reasons. Posting analog content to the Internet is costly and time-consuming, as it is necessary to digitize analog content before putting it online. Moreover, some resolution is typically lost during the process of digitization. Clips taken from DVDs, by contrast, are easily compiled and posted to the Internet with the use of software tools. Unsurprisingly, the majority of film and media studies professors who post content on the Internet derive that content from DVDs.

In addition to showing clips, professors often offer screenings of entire movies or television shows for students enrolled in large courses. Sixteen-millimeter and 35mm film remain the formats of choice for many professors who offer full-length screenings in their film classes, but institutional support for these formats has declined in recent years, and many if not most professors now use DVDs for all screenings. The affordability and durability of DVDs contributes to their increasing popularity. And as movies in film formats grow ever more scarce, DVD screenings are only likely to increase.

Film and media studies students also rely on DVDs in their own course work. Movie clips and stills taken from DVDs frequently find their way into student research assignments and presentations. Much like their professors, students turn to DVDs as source material because of the quality, versatility, and the availability of DVD content. In addition, student-run film societies often feature DVDs at their screenings. The widespread availability of works in DVD format, and the low cost...