According to U.S. copyright law, any produced work, including videos, is automatically copyrighted from the moment of its creation, meaning that in order to distribute the work to others, you must seek out permission from the creator. More and more videos, however, are being made freely and legitimately available online to anyone who wishes to watch them.
Best Practices for Searching for Videos for Class Content:
is a licensing organization that allows creators of content (photographers, video producers, musicians, writers) to specify the terms under which they are willing to share their work. Anything with a creative commons license is available for free viewing.
If you come across a piece of media that you would like to use for your class, look carefully on the page to see if there are any notices about distributing the work. Also look for the Creative Commons licensing to see if the creator might be willing to share his or her work freely: As you're searching Creative Commons, please do note that, once you've navigated away from the Creative Commons site, you should check to make sure the content you find is under a CC license. Some of the sites also have materials that are under full copyright.