… nor would I steal anything, but I do use little bits of TV shows, films or adverts to help me make my point as I’m doing now, and to try and make my lessons more interesting. Yes, I plead guilty to that charge and what is worse, I don’t feel any remorse, I’ll keep doing it because it is what I do for a living, you see, it is what I have always done: I’m an English teacher, I am not a film director, or a journalist, or an actor, or a professional writer, but I’ve always used recordings, videos, newspaper and magazine articles and bits of films as a part of my lessons, to motivate my students, to encourage discussions to show them what is going on at the moment in English speaking countries, so they learn about their culture and can get to know and appreciate it. I used to bring those things to the classroom in photocopies, and video or tape recordings, now technology allows downloading podcasts and video podcasts, editing and posting them in the class blog or burning them on CD or DVD so they can be watched or listened to in the classroom, the possibilities are mind-boggling and this is already showing in the students performance: it is good for learning and if it is good for learning, it is my duty as a teacher to use it, I think.
So far so good, the classroom has always been, a restricted environment: teachers from yesteryear, have got away with crimes far more serious than handing out copyrighted material in photocopies, but nowadays the classroom can for the first time open up to the world, thanks to the internet we can extend and complement the activities that take place in class. Technically we can use these bits and pieces from TV, films or Youtube to make interactive exercises that our students, or anybody else, can do online, it is the same we used to do with the video or tape recordings, the word processor and the photocopies, but now it is easier, and the results more attractive, and the materials can reach more people, as we can easily share the materials with other colleagues or make them publicly available on the internet. Now, most of the videos you can find on the internet, in youtube or other sites of the same kind are infringing the copyright laws, most likely the one I’ve linked here does, as it is a clip from a TV show, so most probably in a few days will be removed and the link in this post broken. That is the reason why if we use video from internet as the base for an activity we have to “capture” it, and once we’ve captured it we have to keep it somewhere, but where? this is the problem, I’ve been given two warnings from Youtube for uploading copyrighted material, I didn’t wait for the third and suffer the humiliation of been banned, I have also been banned from the Internet archive.com and it is pretty humiliating, I can tell you, to be treated as if you were some sort of scum, just for trying to do your job, humiliating and infuriating if you take into account that at least 80 per cent of the content in these sites consists of that, films, interviews and live concerts “illegally” posted that are always there, but continually shifting place. So it seems pretty hypocritical to say the least, but what did I expect? the internet just mirrors real life and we live in two-faced world!
There must be a solution that satisfies all parties, I think like perhaps the education authorities paying a tax or something to the Authors’ society that allows teachers to use bits of works by other people up to a length or duration … I might be overreacting but I think it is unfair that we teachers must be treated like low life criminals just for trying to do our jobs according to the times we are living, the alternative is going by the book, and this sounds pretty boring to me!

PS As I was saying above the video from youtube, has already been removed (to another location). I have found it again, and this time I’ve downloaded it (hope nobody will shoot me for it) You can watch it here:

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