Though the use of video in the classroom is on the rise, the fear of legal recrimination has discouraged many educators from reproducing or editing digital video clips for educational purposes. Now, Discovery Education--the world's leading provider of streaming video and multimedia learning services to schools--has found a way to help educators avoid many of these copyright concerns.

Through a new offer, subscribers to Discovery's unitedstreaming video-on-demand service now have access to more than 1,000 video clips that have been copyright-cleared by their producers for editing or reproduction by teachers and students in class projects. (For a full list of available titles, click here.)

Rod Dunklee, technology applications specialist for the 30,000-student Clear Creek School District, in a suburb of Houston, says the copyright-free clips enable him to facilitate professional development exercises for teachers in ways he never would have imagined before.

Not that he takes copyright infringement lightly. "Teachers could potentially lose their jobs over allowing students to break copyright law," explained Dunklee, who warned that the "fair-use" provision in current U.S. copyright law is very narrow in scope and does not necessarily protect educators from the threat of lawsuits.

But, he added, with Discovery's copyright-approved clips, teachers needn't worry about that. Instead, they can spend time thinking of ways to use the technology to promote innovation in the classroom--editing and splicing videos, for example, to make the most of limited class time. And students are free to use the clips in multimedia presentations and other class projects.

Company spokesman David Pendery said the goal is to increase the use and versatility of Discovery's popular unitedstreaming tool, which reportedly is used by more than 26,000 schools. Instead of merely showing the videos in class, he said, students and teachers now have the ability to take select clips and alter them, providing just one more way for educators to integrate video into new learning opportunities.