From VHS to the Cloud: Audiovisual content in education comes a long way

In just over twenty years, audiovisual use in Australia's classrooms has come a long way. The days of wheeling in a VHS recorder and television to play a program to students have gone, replaced by a myriad of new audiovisual technologies. In the face of this change, there have been two constants - teachers want ready access to fresh relevant programming that speaks to the curriculum, and we need copyright laws that provide easy access to this work, and payment to the program makers. This article explains the operation of the provisions of the Australian Copyright Act that allow for educational copying from television and radio and the collecting society that administers them - Screenrights. It then describes a Screenrights initiative, EnhanceTV Direct, that was trialled in 2011 and is now being rolled out to educational institutions. This service makes existing and new audiovisual content, specifically curated for the education market, easily available to schools, universities, TAFEs and other licensed institutions, while ensuring program makers receive a royalty and are therefore encouraged to produce more creative work. © 2012 Swinburne University of Technology.