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copyright and the public school



(thanks to the wisdom of the list masters who decided replies should
default to going to the sender, I accidentally sent the first part of
this  yesterday to a person who responded to the original message
rather than to the whole list; having checked some notes I had at
home, I'm now sending an expanded version to the list)

I have been to some copyright workshops that included discussions of
exactly this issue. The short answer is: making a video of a play,
etc., that is currently copyright is considered creating a derivative
work (whether for personal viewing or other), and therefore is
considered a copyright violation.

The expert on copyright and schools who presented these workshops is
Gary Becker. He lives in Orlando and has some especially chilling
stories to tell about Disney enforcing their copyrights. He did say in
the workshop that he had never heard of a *parent* being arrested for
making a video of their child in a play, but there's always a first
time. You never know who might attend a performance, and report a
violation. My local public library had a problem several years ago
when they screened a movie for which they didn't have public
performance rights and someone reported them. Having one person make a
video and then selling copies without permission of the copyright
holder would be a serious violation of copyright.

Usually schools do not own the copyright to plays they put on. I
suspect the ruling from the school about no videos at the plays came
from an administrator who had been made aware of the potential
problems (perhaps he attended one of Gary Becker's workshops, too). My
mother had an experience of being involved in a copyright suit as the
president of an organization that was named as a party to the
violation. The organization was, in fact, not a party to the
violation, but rather than go to the expense of going to court, their
insurance company paid about $4000 to the person who sued. People who
sue look for someone to name as part of the suit who has money from
whom they can recover damages. So if someone did decide to initiate a
suit because a parent filmed the child's school play, they might name
the school as a party to the suit.

For anyone who has read this far, this post is an example of why
replies should default to the list: not just because I accidentally
send my first response to the wrong person, but because several people
gave (non-legal) opinions that it would be all right to film the
school play, which were incorrect. If replies go only to the person
who initiated the question, that person might get incorrect
information that might cause them problems. If replies go to the list,
people who can correct that information will see them and respond,
possibly saving the requestor time, money or keeping them from
damaging their collections.



Christine Crawford-Oppenheimer
Special Collections Librarian/Archivist

Culinary Institute of America
1946 Campus Drive
Hyde Park, NY  12538
(845) 451-1757
c_crawfo@culinary.edu

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