Here is the hit I was asked for. The first response is from Carol
Simpson, an author and expert in the field. Many thanks to all for
responding. Sara
1. What they are telling you is that you do not have public
performance rights to this program. But as long as you are using the
program inaccordance with the AV guidelines (if you can answer YES to
fivequestions) you are EXEMPT from the public performance requirement.
Basically that just means if the tape is being used for direct
instruction in a regular class at school, you can use the tape. Private
students can use the tape (take it home and view, for example). But you
can't use the tape for rainy day recess, reward, entertainment,
babysitting, etc. That's all there is to it. Of course, if you SIGNED
anything that says you won't use the tape in a school, all bets are off.
A signed license trumps the fair use exemptions any day.
Carol Simpson, Ed.D.
Assoc. Professor - School of Library & Information Sciences
University of North Texas
2. I recently graduated from Florida State University with my MLIS. In
our Collection Development class, this was a HUGE topic...copyright. Our
instructor told us of incidents where Disney has sued school systems
because their movies, even though associated with a lesson or shown as
rainy day activities, where violating copyright because they were shown
in a group setting. You must purchase group viewing rights with every
video. When I did my student teaching in a school library, I brought
this up the media specialist, and she replied that it was no big deal
and that no one her district has ever mentioned it. And she had several
Disney movies on her shelf. When I conducted my two required visits to
other schools, this was the feeling there as well. We as Media
Specialists need to be more aware of this potential threat.
3. Anything Disney is that way. I have heard of schools being sued by
Disney because they have Disney videos in their collection.
4. Hmmm...this sounds strange...my understanding was that "home use
only"
does not apply to schools. How do they figure that classroom use is
commercial? If teachers are starting to charge an entrance fee,
where's my cut? :-) Sounds almost like they are using scare tactics to
try and make EVERY teacher buy a copy. Kind of ironic that a channel
called Discovery doesn't want anyone to LEARN from them! I'd be
interested to see what Dr. Simpson has to say on this...
5. As I understand it, the fair use laws offer an exemption to the
home use or personal use only clause when the video is used for direct
instruction. It would be legal to show this video at school for
instructional purposes, but not for entertainment. Please let me know
if the copyright experts on the list say otherwise.
6.This is one reason we formed a consortium to purchase educational
videos.
Our consortium, the Ohio Educational Media Consortium
(http://www.ohioedmedia.org/), contracts with producers for copying
and
viewing rights. All our videos are able to be shown for classroom
instructional use. Our consortium negotiates contracts that allow
for
unlimited copying for the two year period of the contract. This way we
ensure that all our educational videos are legal. They are also usually
of
good quality as any producer that doesn't meet our educational
standards is
informed that we are displeased and that we won't contract with them
unless
they can guarantee good quality.
7. However, the educational exemption or fair use would grant the
right to use
the video so long as it was a legally acquired copy and it is part of
the
curriculum and is used in face-to-face instruction. Schools may use
videos
etc. labeled for home use so long as they are meeting the fair use
criteria. It would appear to me that Discovery is trying to rewrite
copyright law here.
8. I was under the impression that while classroom use ( was a public
performance, it was one automatically considered fair use.
9. I find this quite interesting, too. Our copyright "expert," tells
us most VHS videos may be used in the classroom without paying for the
public performance rights as long as the video is used for
"face-to-face" instruction. I will be interested to see what others have
to say on this topic.
Sara Johnson, IMC Coordinator
D. C. Everest Senior High IMC
Schofield, WI 54476
sjohnson@dce.k12.wi.us
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