Why Won't Netflix, Hulu, or Prime Video Let Me Log In?
Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime do not allow the use of their services in a classroom or public setting. It is illegal and breaks their Terms of Use.
Against Amazon Prime Terms even if you purchase the movies:
Amazon
Thomas P
February 9, 2021 at 6:35 PM
You are not allowed to play any movie that you buy from Amazon Prime Video to your class, locally or remotely. The license you get is for personal use only.
For in class viewing of physical copies of movies there is something known as the face to face teaching exemption. Though that only allows for in class viewing of physical copies, not online classes, and only at non-profit schools. (There is also the TEACH act that extends that to online classes, but not for movies, only educational "non-dramatic" content, and not over open tools like Zoom and Teams) In order to stream an entire movie to a class you would need to obtain what is called a Public Performance Right (PPR) for the film and use a streaming service that allows for it. Amazon does not allow for it.
There are some resources out there for teachers where a streaming service has done the legwork for you and obtained PPR for their films and are set up for streaming to classes. A couple that I have seen are Kanopy, https://www.kanopy.com/, and Films on Demand, https://fod.infobase.com/nd_Home.aspx. Kanopy works through participating public libraries, colleges and universities. Films on Demand is for teachers in public Pre-K through grade 12. There are probably others as well.
Another resource that your school can look into in the US is an organization called the Motion Picture Licensing Corporation that can help with licensing physical copies of movies for class use. They may also be able to help with streaming licenses for classes as well as where you can obtain them for streaming (not Amazon/Apple/Google/etc to the best of my knowledge). For more information check them out at https://schools.mplc.org/.
