One more thing before I sleep - movies in classrooms

[velvetpage]

Technically, it's illegal for me to bring a movie from my personal collection and show it at school. I have a personal home-use licence on that movie, not a public viewing licence, and a school is considered public viewing even if we're not charging for it.

I think this law is ridiculous and impossible to enforce, but it's on the books. I also think that most schools would agree to pay a small amount more for a copy that was licensed for classroom use - classroom use being a different category from general-public use. I'm sure most schools would be willing to pay, say, $30 for a DVD they could get for $20 without the licence, in order to be on the right side of the law. But that requires an update in copyright legislation, and copyright legislation is not going towards making thing easier for the consumer these days. In fact, there's a law being debated in Canada right now that would make transfering music from my CD to my computer to my MP3 player illegal, even if the original CD was legally purchased.

Any thoughts?

Comments

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Am I right in thinking there is no difference made between a non-profit and for-profit public performance? Like, with public performance rights, we could charge money to get in and not be violating those terms?

[toad-hall.livejournal.com]

It really depends on the individual contracts. Each publisher has different terms and conditions -- PBS was different than Paramount or DIsney say. Having an Educational/library PPR (at least when I was doing this) did not allow you to charge admission. THere are ways to get around this. Really expensive popcorn was one way.
here's one explanation of it.
http://www.criterionpic.com/cpl/lcl_frequentlyaskedques.html

[toad-hall.livejournal.com]

also, my understanding is that more and more schools are purchasing location licenses rather than purchasing individual films with PPR (which was the standard when I was doing this)