Skip to Main Content

Streaming Content and E-Books for the Classroom

Find out about electronic resources for the classroom.

About Streaming Feature Films

Film production companies and distributors protect revenue and copyright through very strict control of viewing access. Viewing a film or documentary is dictated by public performance rights and copyright. Public performance rights are not superseded by educational fair use; if a film or documentary is to be shown on campus outside the classroom, public performance rights must be purchased.

Public performance rights typically cover a single viewing event or broadcast. Public performance rights are costly, with an average cost of $750 per event. The costs vary between production houses, distributors, and other attributes factor in such as film release date.

Feature film streaming is controlled by exclusive public performance licensing companies; the two largest licensing companies in the United States are Swank Motion Pictures, Inc., and Criterion Pictures:

  • Swank - Walt Disney Pictures, Lionsgate, Columbia Pictures, Warner Brothers, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures, A24, Amazonstudios, New Line Cinema, Touchstone Pictures, Bleekerstreet, Focus Features, Miramax, Europa, MGM, Summit International and more.  See entire listing here.
  • Criterion - a  member of the Global Eagle Entertainment Family. Exclusive licensor for 20th Century Studios, Blue Sky, Searchlight Pictures, Troma Films, New Concorde, and others. See more information here.

Educational Fair Use Streaming - both Swank and Criterion have created licensing/streaming products for college and university libraries, specifically to meet classroom educational needs:

  • Swank Digital Campus - campus libraries subscribe to the service and purchase yearly licenses for specific titles. Titles may be requested by faculty, or the library can subscribe to a curated collection.  At this time Hood does not offer Swank streaming services.
  • Criterion College Campus Services - see details here. In addition, Infobase offers a curated Criterion collection called Feature Films for Education. At this time, the Hodson Library does not offer Criterion streaming services

Occasionally, feature films are made available for free streaming. Check YouTube and the film's or director's website to see if a film is available for free.         

About Streaming Documentaries

Streaming availability and options for documentaries is more varied than that of feature films. Documentaries are made for and by television studios, streaming subscription services, small independent production companies, and major production studios. Unlike feature films, there are more potential vendors that offer streaming for documentaries and documentary series. A streaming documentary may be offered for free, rental, purchase, through a streaming subscription service, or even through one of the feature film streaming services like Swank.

For colleges and universities, there are several streaming subscription companies that offer collections or individual licensing of documentaries. Hood subscribes to two services, Academic Video Online Premium and Swank.  

Streaming Film and Documentary Resources at Hood

Other Places to Check