Section 110(1) of the Copyright Act addresses performance and display of copyrighted materials in the face-to-face classroom. The TEACH Act addresses performance and display in online teaching (teaching through digital transmission as in Canvas).
FAQs about Classroom Uses of Video (Performance)
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1. Can I show copyrighted videos in class?
Yes, you may show all or part of a video (i.e. documentary, motion picture) in a face-to-face class setting, but there are some boundaries. The showing must be:
2. Can I show rented or borrowed videos in class?
Yes, so long as they are lawfully made. Netflix DVDs are also permissible.
3. Can I show library videos in class?
Yes. The library can purchase DVDs. Submit a purchase request.
4. Do I need public performance rights to show a video in a class?
No.
5. When do I need public performance rights?
You need public performance rights to show a video not related to a teaching activity. Campus clubs and social events that wish to show videos must have permission or public performance rights. Any event that is open to the public is a public performance and needs public performance rights.
6. How do I get public performance rights?
Student organizations can work with the Office of Student Involvement to obtain public performance rights. For faculty, the library can assist you and guide you to permissions agencies. Contact the copyright support team.
7. Do library videos automatically come with public performance rights?
Not automatically for every video, although some video suppliers include public performance rights.
8. When I order a video for the libraries' collections, can I request public performance rights?
Yes, and the cost is often higher than the typical video, naturally. Some of the Library's streaming databases come with public performance rights. Purchase request (select streaming video).
9. How can I tell if a library video has public performance rights?
Contact the Libraries' copyright team
10. What about purchasing streaming videos?
Some companies allow libraries to purchase streaming rights. Submit a purchase request (select streaming video) and we will investigate.
The UMKC Libraries subscribe to several streaming video databases. Find streaming videos the library has purchased individually for other classes via the library catalog. Use Advanced Search and for "Material Type" select "Films/Videos (Online)". All these videos may also be used in online teaching.
11. What about using streaming Netflix?
You may wish to have students watch videos outside of class. While setting this up through Canvas or a content management system may seem like the solution, showing entire popular, general release movies this way is a real stretch of Fair Use and under the TEACH Act involves licensing. Consider having your students get their own accounts or pay-per-view through services like Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, etc. to view movies. While you may show a DVD movie in its entirety in a face-to-face class, you most likely do not want to spend class time this way. These services are inexpensive solutions to the video viewing problem.
12. Can I show a YouTube video to my classes?
Yes, but do not use YouTube videos that contain infringing content just as you would not use any other type of infringing content. YouTube is particularly rife with such material despite YouTube's best efforts. The best way to handle a YouTube video is to link to it. Using YouTube's embedded code for linking is ok also; it's just code and YouTube makes it available for users to embed.
13. Can I copy a video to make short portions or a compilation of video clips to show in class?
Most videos today are protected by content scrambling systems (CSS), technological protection measures (TPMs) or digital rights management (DRM), and it is a violation of the law to circumvent these protections to copy material from a video. Instructors can always advance video to the portion they wish to comment on, however, the 2012 DMCA exemptions permit faculty and students requiring close analysis of film and media excerpts to circumvent protection measures to make short portions available for viewing. The exemption applies only to motion pictures on DVD or from online distribution services and the circumvention is allowed only when “necessary because reasonably available alternatives, such as noncircumventing methods or using screen capture software …are not able to produce the level of high-quality content required to achieve the desired criticism or comment.” If very high quality copy is not required for the criticism or comment, the law permits the use of screen capture software such as Camtasia, Jing, and Screencast-o-matic.
There is no definition of "short portions." See our DMCA page for more information. Also see the U.S. Copyright Office website for the most current "Rulemaking on Exemptions from Prohibition of Technological Measures that Control Access to Copyrighted Works.
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Text of Section 110 (1) for Face-to-face teaching situations:
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106 [of the copyright act], the following are not infringements:
| (1) performance or display of a work by instructors or pupils in the course of face-to-face teaching activities of a nonprofit educational institution, in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction, unless, in the case of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, the performance, or the display of individual images, is given by means of a copy that was not lawfully made under this title, and that the person responsible for the performance knew or had reason to believe was not lawfully made; |
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