The popular Vimeo channel of PRSD, which is a website like YouTube to share videos, was threatened to be taken down by Vimeo during the first week of school here at Pentucket. Mr. Bart, teacher of Video I, II, Advanced Video, and PentucketTV, was contacted by Vimeo to take down two music videos made by students in his and Mr. Bixby’s Video I classes.

A scare hit the video community at PRHS when Vimeo contacted Mr. Bart. Having the all of the videos taken down would be a sad event for all of the current and past video production students. Vimeo’s reasoning for taking down the two videos was that they contained copyrighted music. However, under the Fair Use Law, copyrighted music can be used in public videos if it is being used for educational purposes. Mr. Bart went back and forth with Vimeo a few times to try and resolve this issue. Since the channel was on its second strike, because of copyrighted music, he needed to be sure to get it fixed before the third strike, in which the channel would be terminated.

Every year, one of the most popular courses at PRHS is the Video Production classes taught by Mr. Bart and Mr. Bixby. Starting with Video Production I, students are introduced to the skills that go into making a film. If students are still interested in what goes into making film after Video I, Video II is the next option. This class expands the student’s knowledge and introduces a new set of skills. If the student is still interested they can go into Advanced Video Production or Pentucket TV, both classes give the student more freedom to create whatever they want.

A major project the students create is a music video at the end of the semester. Students always have a lot of fun with this project since they are free to pick whatever song they want and are able to execute the video in anyway they want. When the project is finished, it is uploaded to the PRSD Vimeo channel. On this channel, other students can see the work of the video students at Pentucket. A wide variety of videos are on this channel and one can find all sorts of interesting things to watch thanks to the video production teachers and classes.

After a few conversations with people at Vimeo, Mr. Bart finally got the issue fixed. Vimeo contacted Mr. Bart through an email on Sept. 14th, saying, “Please note that, as of the date hereof, in accordance with DMCA provision…., Vimeo has restored the Material.” Now, the videos that had been previously removed are back up on the channel.

Thanks to Mr. Bart, students and members of the PRSD community can continue to see the talent of many students at Pentucket through our Vimeo channel for a long time.

To check out the popular music videos and more, go to: https://vimeo.com/prsd