It is important to remember that the TEACH Act was a revision of the copyright law of 1976, section 110(2) in light of changed technology.  It has to do primarily with the DISPLAY or PERFORMANCE of copyrighted work, as they are delivered to distance students, and little to do with making copies (except the copies of works so delivered, in section 112(f)) of already copyrighted works.

Works can be delivered to distance students if:

1. The work cannot have been produced for the distance education market in the first place.  That is, you cannot copy, without permission, the work of someone attempting to sell distance education materials and then use them in distance ed.  Congress was concerned with protecting the sales of publishers in adding this provision to the law.  Furthermore, textbooks and course packs are specifically excluded.
    
2. The work being copied and digitized must be legally obtained.  That is, not pirated. 
    
3. The amount that can be copied must generally be "reasonable and limited" or limited to an amount and duration comparable to what would be displayed or performed in a live physical classroom setting.  This has not been tested in court, as far as we know, but the argument for copying and digitizing entire works is that they are no longer than would be shown in a traditional face-to-face class.  Opinions differ on this point, and some prefer to take a very conservative view of how much of a work can be digitized and delivered to distance students.
    
4. The digitized copy must be transmitted under the supervision of the instructor.  This does not mean that the instructor has to been online when students are accessing a video stream, for example.  It does mean that the work must be an integral part of the class session and cannot be simply enrichment or background material that the student is free to watch or not.  The faculty member should interactively use the copyrighted work as part of a class assignment in the distance education course.
    
5. Software tools must be used to limit access to the works to only students enrolled in the course, to prevent downstream copying by those students, and to prevent the students from retaining the works for longer than a “class session.”  In our case, that means the work must be password protected in a Blackboard course site, and it must be streamed, and not downloadable.  It is true there are tools to capture streamed media, but streaming is considered a reasonable effort to satisfy the requirements of the law.  In the case or print material (and bear in mind the extent of print material that can be digitized under the TEACH act is restricted to the amount that would be displayed in a normal in-person class session) this means placing non-printing, non-copying restrictions on the documents using Acrobat or some other program.
    
6. The institution must have a copyright policy in place, and a copyright notice must be provided with the work, and students must be informed that they may not violate the legal rights of the copyright holder.
    
7. Works can be digitized for display in a distance ed class if:
   1. The amount of analog material digitized cannot exceed what could be displayed in a normal in-person class session.  We have taken that to mean 1.5 hours, but, of course, longer works could be segmented.
   2. Digitization can occur as long as a digital version is not already available to students.  If, for example, a professor asks us to digitize a Frontline episode, but we find that it has already been digitized and streamed from the Frontline web site, we are not permitted to digitize, but the class must use the version on the Frontline web site.
   3. Digitization of an analog source may occur if a digital alternative exists and the digital alternative contains "technological protection measures" that keep it from being used for a section 110(2) display.  In other words, if a DVD is encrypted and copy protected in such a way that it cannot be excepted, an alanog alternative (for example, a VHS tape) may be legally used..

The best summary of all of this can be found in the TEACH Act checklist from NCSU.  Dr. Crews has his own somewhat more complex checklist.  Using either would give the faculty member as clear guidance as possible on what works can be displayed in a distance ed class.