We’ve talked about this before, but it’s good to get a quick refresher. Copyright is not a fun idea, a nice thing to do if we remember it. It is FEDERAL LAW.

And we generally remember to chat about this when something big hits the news – but this is important every day.

Library staff, especially school library staff, need to know that a teacher cannot just copy an article and give it out to every student. An academic library needs to know they cannot order one copy of a journal, scan it, and distribute it to people across the campus. You need to know that you cannot show just any video in class. Images found on the web that are nice/useful/super-cute cannot be added to your website, newsletter, or classroom material.

And I’m slightly shocked this was not commonly known, but I’m coming from the biased position of BEING A LIBRARIAN and knowing that you CANNOT SHOW A VIDEO WITHOUT GETTING PERMISSION FROM THE OWNER!

Yeesh – this is basic.

And why is the the case? Let’s say I make a movie here in the office, all about the joys of libraries. I spend a bunch of money making it, and I need to recoup my costs. Plus, it was a lot of work and I deserve to get paid for coming up with the idea, organizing it all, and creating that movie.

So, I’m selling my movie. Great. It’s becoming popular, with library fans across the country buying it, then after they love it they tell a friend that they want to buy a copy too. My future as a movie maker is really coming along great!

BUT!

Some people aren’t doing this.

A library can, and should, buy a license that lets public performance of specific movies or from specific studios happen. Without doing that – without paying for a public performance – showing a movie is a violation of copyright law.

It doesn’t matter if you personally bought a DVD. That only gives a license to show the movie in your own home, to your family and a few friends. It very specifically, very definitely, no-question-at-all does NOT give permission to show my movie to a group of people.

And that makes sense. If someone shows my movie to a bunch of people, now they aren’t going to buy it. One person bought a copy, but my revenue from all those other people is gone. I have been financially damaged.

So you may have seen the story about the PTA in California that showed a DVD of the Lion King. They were doing a school fundraiser, more power to them!, and made about $800. No word on how this hit the news, but it’s a nice feel-good story that people would want to share.

Except.

They violated copyright law. And they got nailed by the organization that oversees public viewings.

And they owed a $250 fine. (Really – they got off easy with that.)

This blew up, and the story became about the big mean Disney corporation stole money from a poor little school.

Except.

That’s not what happened.

That school violated copyright laws. They were caught and punished. Disney, and the organization that oversees their licensing laws, was entirely 100% legally in the right here.

Are copyright law overly restrictive, onerous, and written to wildly favor rich creators? Absolutely. I will be happy to rail for HOURS about how evil Disney is, how terribly and unfairly restrictive our copyright laws are, and how the effect is to stifle free exchange of ideas. FOR HOURS I WILL DO THIS!

But – it’s still the law. And when we knowing or unknowingly break the law, there are consequences. Nobody goes to copyright jail, thankfully; but the financial costs can be pretty extreme.

So keep up on the basics of copyright. Know where some potential danger areas are for your patrons and your organization. Be ready to proactively get out there and help people to follow the laws and to make better decisions!

There was a happy ending here for the school. The CEO of Disney was so embarrassed by the terrible publicity of a multi-billion dollar company taking money from a nice little school, that he agreed to make a donation to the school.

Let’s not put ourselves in a position to need the charity of a CEO. Let’s be sure we are following the laws. (And advocating for better laws to be enacted!)

Update:

Here is some basic information on fair use of copyrighted materials, from the US Copyright Office! “Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that may qualify as fair use.”