Not all of these resources are OER, many of them are public domain or from the library. Library resources can be used in your classes without worrying about copyright but they are Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC), not OER.
There are many sources for streaming video content available that students can access on their own. For instance, subscription services Netflix and Hulu offer thousands of documentaries, mainstream film titles, and television programs on a streaming basis for an affordable monthly fee that most students likely already pay. Additionally, sites like Amazon and iTunes offer inexpensive streaming video rental. Instructors are encouraged to investigate availability of videos through these subscription services that they wish students to view and require students, as part of the class, to have one of these low-cost monthly services or to rent movies on their own time. . There are also many online sources for free and legal streaming content:
Students must access these on their own, you may not show them asychronously.
Full length episodes from the acclaimed series.
Teacher resources across the curriculum - short films on a variety of subjects.
A National Preserve of Documentary Films about American Roots Cultures streamed with essays about the traditions and film-making. The site includes transcriptions, study and teaching guides, suggested readings, and links to related websites.
This library contains thousands of digital movies uploaded by Archive users which range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts. Many of these videos are available for free download.
A thoughtful collection of links to hundreds of Indie Films, Film Noir, Documentaries & More. The list includes films by directors like Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Elia Kazan, Ken Loach, Sergei Eisenstein, Tarkovsky, Capra, Luc Besson, Godard, Hawks, Kubrick, and many more.
A Project of the School of Library and Information Science at UNC Chapel Hill. The purpose of the Open Video Project is to collect and make available a repository of digitized video content for the digital video, multimedia retrieval, digital library, and other research communities.
SnagFilms.com is a website where you can watch full-length documentary films for free, but also a platform that lets you "snag" a film and put it anywhere on the web." Searchable and browseable alphabetically or by topic.
TED talks is large collection of recorded presentations from the TED (Technology, Entertainment Design) conference held annually since 1984 in Long Beach California. Talks are generally short and run the gamut of topics from biotechnology to astronomy to population to urban design and beyond.
More than 1200 documentary films available for streaming. Subjects are varied and cover a wide range of personal, social, scientific, political, historical topics.
Thanks to George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida. Resources for Free and Legal Streaming Video. CC BY NC SA
You may search or browse for films by title or genre. On some pages, you may filter by MPAA ratings, copyright year, and genre.
On the homepage, use the search bar at the top to search for keywords in the title or description.
Use the Advanced Search page to search for keywords and/or search by Producer, Copyright Year, Genre, or Language (there are a few Spanish-language films and several with Spanish subtitles). Other advanced search features listed don't actually provide additional functionality.
Copyright determines what may and may not be used in the classroom. Films may be shown synchronously in a closed classroom (or behind the portal), if you only use what is pedagogically necessary. When you download a link to your Canvas shell, you are making a copy. This breaks copyright law.
Service Agreements are usually more restrictive because those services either own their own original content (Amazon or Netflix) or have paid a licensing fee to the copyright owner to show that film. When you download a film for a non-personal use, you are breaking the service agreement. While the worse thing that will probably happen to you is your service will be cancelled, do you want to chance it.
Image credit: The Hollywood Reporter
While streaming doesn't violate U.S. copyright law, downloading very explicitly does. You're making a copy of the work every time you download something — a clear violation if it's done without the copyright holder's permission. “The copyright owner has the exclusive right to make copies.Oct 14, 2019
"When Streaming is Illegal: Here is What You Need to Know About Pirated Copies." All Connect Full-text Article