Copyright Questions of the Month. Three Questions: The Berne Convention, YouTube, and Movie Licensing

Effect of the Berne Convention

Q:  Our school has just acquired a video on demand server and from what I've read it seems that it would be okay to upload copies of DVDs (both educational and entertainment—but not used for entertainment purposes but for instructional purposes) legally purchased for classroom use onto our new video server. And to complicate matters—my school is in Egypt and I'm not sure what rules apply!

A:  Your school’s use of your video server would be governed by the laws of Egypt if Egypt has signed the Berne Convention (which it has). Being a Berne signatory means that you protect the copyrights of other signatory countries (the U.S. is one of many—most are) under the laws of your country. So you need to understand Egyptian copyright law because that is controlling for you.

Blanket Approval of YouTube

Q: My school district has opened up the importation of YouTube videos into teacher and student presentations. Can all YouTube videos be used for this purpose? My people are under the impression that all YouTube is freeware and perfectly legal.

A: YouTube is up for grabs, copyright-wise. Within YouTube there are videos created by individuals and the copyright is owned by the individual. The creator may have given free permission or released the video under a Creative Commons license. There are videos done by individuals incorporating the works of others without permission (notably music) which the copyright owner of the incorporated work may not care is used, but there are others where the copyright owner of the appropriated work cares a lot and demands that the work be taken down as an infringement. And there are other things there that are blatant infringements, such as television episodes and commercial movies (or portions of those).   

Section 110(1) of the Copyright Act allows use of media without permission of the copyright owner if (among other factors) the copy being used is legally acquired. For any of the examples above in which all the copyright owners have given permission or licensed the work, the copy would be legally acquired. For those videos, however, that include works that are not used with permission, those would not be legally acquired. Using a non-infringing copy for direct instruction (not entertainment or reward) should be OK in most circumstances as long as you meet the requirements of Section 110(1) of the law. To make matters worse, the video creator’s use of the non-permitted portion might be justified under a fair use assessment, which would require a completely different analysis. Therefore, you simply cannot make a blanket pronouncement that ALL YouTube is either permitted under copyright law or not.

Movie license purchase

Q: My assistant superintendent sent me a flyer from a movie licensing company, and I took that as a recommendation that our library should purchase the license. I know our staff is not always copyright compliant, and we have a family movie night annually. Do we need to purchase this license? Not every school in the district purchases this license.

A:  In most instances, the district purchases such a license as self-defense. The cost to deal with a single cease and desist letter can go up into the tens of thousands of dollars. So rather than police teachers at the local building (always unpopular) they elect to pay a little now to avoid a big bill later. You might try to negotiate a district-wide or county-wide purchasing consortium. Or maybe your state has one. You can get a significant discount that way.

This column is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information regarding application of copyright law in schools. Nothing in this column is intended to constitute legal advice, and nothing herein should be considered legal advice. If legal advice is required, the reader should consult a licensed attorney in his or her own state. Neither ABC-CLIO, LLC, nor the author makes any warranties or representations concerning the information contained in this column or the use to which it is put.