Should Academic Libraries Be Able to Subscribe to Netflix?

Many college libraries are turning to Netflix to flesh-out small film collections when faced with limited budgets. The University of Washington, Pacific Lutheran University and Williamette University are among the colleges that have Netflix subscriptions for their libraries. Rebecca Fitzgerald, a librarian at Concordia College, says she saved her library $3,000 in film purchases.
But the DVD rental services says this practice is a violation of its terms of use. Neither loaning DVDs to professors to show in class, nor allowing students to stream video in the library are considered acceptable. However, Netflix will not be taking any kind of action against education institutions. “We just don’t want to be pursuing libraries,” said Steve Swasey, the vice president of corporate communications at Netflix. “We appreciate libraries and we value them, but we expect that they follow the terms of agreement.”
Netflix does not offer any kind of educational, or even institutional subscriptions. They state that their service is only intended for personal use.
Via The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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