[LM_NET] Copyright questions

[Sarah Milligan <hermia_mnd@YAHOO.COM>]

Dear Colleagues,

I have been reading the postings regarding copyright
with interest.  I'm pretty new in the realm of
librarianship (it's also not my primary
responsibility--I'm mostly an English teacher) and my
program in college didn't stress a lot of specifics of
copyright law.  However, as I've been reading your
posts, I have been getting rather nervous about our
school.  Could those more knowledgeable than I please
enlighten me on the subject in regard to the
following?

I teach at a therapeutic boarding school.  The
students are, for the most part, not allowed to leave
campus--PERIOD.  In order to go into town, they need
to go through a lot of hoops and generally need to be
here at least 6 months.  They also have very limited
television time.  However, several times a week (on
separate occasions for males and females) movies are
shown to portions of the student body.  This is not
part of the academic program, but rather part of their
"program activities."  These movies are either rented
at local stores, purchased and kept on-site, or
borrowed from staff members.  They are shown to part
or all of the student body on a regular, scheduled
basis.  Here is my question:  is this in violation of
copyright law?  The venue is NOT open to the public
(we are a private school in the middle of nowhere--to
prevent runaways), and the school is also considered
to be the home of the students.  They live here and
cannot leave--not quite as strict as a residential
treatment center or in-patient hospital, but they
can't really go anywhere (we're not a lockdown,
though).  These movies have no academic tie-ins and
are purely for entertainment.

The movies they watch during school time are tied to
lesson plans (I show a lot of movies in my Shakespeare
course, for example, focusing on performance aspects,
comparison to plays, and having students come up with
their own interpretations).  This is a separate issue,
though, as there's not a lot of overlap between the
academic and clinical departments.

If we are, in fact, breaking copyright law, I was
interested in what several of you mention:  having
some sort of licensure you could purchase to show
movies.  Could you please let me know where and how I
could purchase this licensure?  Thanks so much. 
Please reply to me off-list, as I just get the digest
option of LM_NET.

Sarah

Sarah Milligan, Librarian/English teacher
Summit Preparatory School
Kalispell, MT
hermia_mnd@yahoo.com

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