From: Brook Hinton (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Nov 19 2008 - 09:10:44 PST
That is true except for the specific classroom conditions that have been
outlined.
From the American Library Association's site:
1. *Loan/Rental of Videotapes*
Libraries may loan/rent videos to patrons for their personal use. This is
true even if the video is labeled "For Home Use Only." According to
Bruwelheide (p. 51), "a library or school that resells, rents, or lends a
copy of a copyrighted videotape, which it owns, is not infringing on the
copyright owner's rights." Some guidelines to follow when loaning/renting a
video to a patron:
- Libraries should not obscure (i.e., cover or deface) the copyright
notice as it appears on the producer's label.
- Libraries should not knowingly loan a video to groups for use in public
performances. If a patron inquires about a planned performance of a
videotape, he or she should be informed that only private uses of it are
lawful.
- Libraries can charge a nominal fee for use of videos. According to
Bruwelheide, "The fact that a fee is charged is irrelevant; the right to
distribute a copy includes the right to rent it -- for a fee or deposit or
otherwise."
2. *Classroom Use of Videotapes*
Classroom use of a copyrighted video is permissible only when all of the
following conditions are met:
- The performance must be by instructors or by pupils.
- The performance is in connection with face-to-face teaching activities.
- The entire audience is involved in the teaching activity.
- The entire audience is in the same room or same general area.
- The teaching activities are conducted by a non-profit education
institution.
- The performance takes place in a classroom or similar place devoted to
instruction.
- The person responsible for the performance has no reason to believe
that the videotape was unlawfully made.
It does goes on to specify that any public performance that DOESN'T meet the
conditions in #2 does require public performance rights and notes that "home
use" dvds do not generally include those rights. For example, the
institution can't screen a "home use" video that the library owns/loans/etc.
for a group (except in the case of the face-to-face classroom use
specified).
A quick google search will confirm that this, practically word-for-word, is
listed as policy in the libraries of many if not most US academic
institutions.
But it doesn't matter. Since fewer and fewer schools have the budget for
rentals, important experimental works in their libraries, or often even film
equipment to show 16mm works when there is a rental budget and a print
available, and since we don't make enough to buy or rent the works at
academic prices (often the only available versions) ourselves, many
instructors are beginning to use pantomime and wild gesticulation to keep
these works from being forgotten. It's quite a sight, especially for the
hand-processed stuff.
Brook
_______________________________________________________
Brook Hinton
film/video/audio art
www.brookhinton.com
studio vlog/blog: www.brookhinton.com/temporalab
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.