Often when I talk to people about using legitimate sources of material I get a lot of questions about how to find it, so I thought I’d dish out a few pointers to help you find what you’re looking for.

YouTube for television (beta) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/) by francescominciotti (http://www.flickr.com/photos/francescominciotti/) (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed.en)
So let’s say for example you want to find some footage of Simon Sheikh collapsing on Q&A. You have a bunch of options up your sleeve:
You could run searches through Enhance TV or contact Collections Development to help you source a copy, once a copy is found they can put it on digitool and give you the link.
But I hear ya, you’re busy and you want it up on the LMS tomorrow… so you jump on to YouTube and type in something along the lines of’ ‘Q&A simon sheikh’ and you get about 16 results…. Look carefully at the channels that are hosting the material…. how many of them sound legitimate – that is – how many channels sound like they have the right to make this material available?
PrinicessHiri? NOPE!
JunkTV101… I don’t think so!
FunnyViralNews? Nope… not it either….
You know that ABC would have the rights, but you can’t see an entry from any of their channels…. Hopeless? Not at all.
It may have aired on ABC, but a lot of news reports covered the collapse. 7, 9, 10 News – all would have had the right to use the footage as part of their report. Speaking of which, there’s a listing from 7 News and SunriseOn7. You click on the channels to check they’re actually the official 7News and Sunrise on 7 channels – they are. BINGO – you have two legitimate copies you can use & you can embed them straight into your LMS subject. But you have one problem. Both contain banter between presenters that you don’t want. Well, let’s try something else….
Google search ‘Q&A simon sheikh’ and ‘ABC,’ and first cab off the rank is the ABC News site which has a video available of the material – no banter – just footage. You just got what you came for. Can’t embed? Just link!
I know that finding legitimate copies of material can be difficult – sometimes you’re not sure if the channel is legitimate, sometimes you can’t find a copy of just the right part of the clip from TV that you’re looking for but remember that using infringing or illegitimate material can lead to being charged with authorising infringing material. Try finding out who the copyright owner might be and whether they have a copy on their website rather than a copy on YouTube and remember that you’re not alone – if you’re having trouble finding what you’re looking for or you’ve found it but you’re not sure if it’s legitimate or not – get in touch with us and we’ll help you find what you’re looking for.