The Chronicle of Higher Education has another article about the TEACH Act, which will make it easier for teachers to integrate media into online classes without breaking copyright. This story, though, makes no mention of the TEACH Act's possible conflict with parts of the DMCA mentioned in this previous Kairosnews post. This article has a nice checklist for checking compliance of online courses with the TEACH act.

Over the few years I've been teaching, I've gathered several video clips that I find useful when teaching composition, my favorite of which is a Monty Python sketch called "Argument Clinic." I had to dump all of my multimedia , ironically, when I began teaching online. Not only could I not provide these clips without breaking copyright (even when they were available at the USF media center), but I couldn't expect students to have fast connections for downloading large video files, or to necessarily even have speakers or the correct viewing software.

Even with the TEACH act, there are still debates about what constitutes "reasonable" precautions and controls over the media files, but, overall, the TEACH act seems a good thing if it doesn't break under the pressure of the DMCA.