Greetings!
Last week after I sent my post about copyright, I got some great questions. I am going to try to answer these to the best of my knowledge, but please remember that I am a teacher like you are and not a copyright expert. The information I give you is information that you could find on the internet just like I did. My only ‘advantage’ is that I am interested in copyright and have attended convention sessions and seen webinars on copyright. If you are interested in viewing a webinar about copyright, go to Common Sense Media (commonsensemedia.net), search for ‘Teaching Copyright and Fair Use to the Remix Generation’ and press enter. Then click on the ‘Webinars’ section. It was recorded November 13, 2013. The webinar is just about an hour long and should count toward your technology requirement.
One question I got was regarding using YouTube clips in church or school without permission from the artist. Is this OK? The short answer is yes, it is probably OK. Here’s why.
“People seem to think that because the public can access videos on YouTube, for free, the vids are in the public domain. (I suppose this follows from the “everything on the Internet is public domain” misconception.) They’re in a public space, true, and people don’t have to pay to see them, but that doesn’t affect copyright.
You do in fact retain copyright in your video when you post it to YouTube (that would be your video, not your Stephen Colbert clip). But by posting it you grant YouTube a license to do pretty much whatever it wants with your work. That includes sublicensing it to others and modifying it (making derivative works). The license terminates within “a commercially reasonable time” once you remove your work from the YouTube site. And you still own the copyright.” http://www.publicdomainsherpa.com/10-misconceptions-about-the-public-domain.html
Another question was about something that many of our schools do. We make a PowerPoint with words to songs to project during a song service. Is this OK? Do we need to get permission to do this?
It looks like the short answer to this is, yes, it is OK if it is for a worship service. Here’s why.
The U.S. Copyright Law (Section 110 [c]) provides an exemption for performance and display of "works of a religious nature in a religious service." Many churches and ministries today need performance licenses from ASCAP, BMI and SESAC because they are performing or causing to be performed (playing) music in many non-exempt settings outside their religious services. The non-exempt performances or playing of music require licensing - concerts (non-ticketed), social and youth events, fund raisers, aerobics and dance classes, conferences, music-on-hold - really any time music is played or performed in your facilities outside a worship service.
One more thing. If you do use a song or the words to a song, and it is legally used whether it is for a religious service or song service, wouldn’t it be a good idea to give as much credit as possible? You may have noticed in our hymnals we give the author of the song and the composer of the tune if they are known. Why shouldn’t we do the same thing in our PowerPoints?
http://www.freeandlegaldownloads.com/resources/music_legal
What is the best way to check if a song is public domain? This is a hard question to answer because there are so many variables to consider. I guess that the best way to check for public domain is to contact the publisher of the music. That way you can get permission to use the song if you need it. Here is a website that I found with lists of songs in public domain and also lists of royalty free music. http://www.pdinfo.com/
Are movies shown at your school? If you have DVDs or videotapes for educational purposes, this is OK. But if you show movies for class parties, rewards, family events, school care programs, rainy day recess, or other things like this, you need to pay a fee in order to do this. It is a yearly fee and will cover all of the items mentioned above. The fee is $105.00 for schools with student populations up to 150 which would be nearly all of our schools. I know that it doesn’t seem like it should cost that much for a school that has less than 40 or 50, but it may be that the organization would make special pricing for our small schools.
However, if you show a movie for a fundraiser, this is not covered in the above umbrella policy. I understand that you must contact the distributor for permission to do this. This is the website for more information on the umbrella policy. http://www.mplc.org/page/dayschool
For your information, here is another site I found for information about copyright.
http://www.christiancopyrightsolutions.com/blog/category/Religious-Service-Exemption-US-Copyright-Law-Church-exemption
I hope this has been helpful to you. If you have copyright questions, I am happy to try to help you find the answers. But first, try typing in the information you want to know in the search box. Usually you will be steered toward webpages that will help you find the answer. If this does not help, please let me know and I will do my best to help you.
Have a great week.
Audrey
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