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Is this ever legal?
Hello,
I have some student who are in a middle school that want to put on a slide show for non profit showing to their peers one time, kind of an end of the year compilation. They want to use some copyrighted music. I would guess that is not legal to use the music but I have seen Tom Wolsky (I think it was him) post on this topic before about music used in schools. I maybe off as it was a year or two ago when I saw the original post. I do not know how or when music can be used in schools in a public showing but when I attend a school function it is being used everywhere. Does anyone have facts to offer on the actual legalities of this type of use…
Coach
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7 Replies
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If it’s in school for student use, it is legal. The only way it wouldn’t be legal is if someone were to go take it out of school and sell it to people. There are a lot of classes that I have had where we had to make music videos for pre made songs, make soundtracks for novels, ect. The only “illegal” thing is downloading the music. If you already have the song on a cd, you can just rip it onto your computer and use it there. I don’t have any documents saying it’s legal cause I wouldn’t even know really what to type in to find them, but I can be sure that there aren’t documents saying its not allowed either.
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q[BackwoodsTerrorMovie] “but I can be sure that there aren’t documents saying its not allowed either.”
That is terrible advice.
What you really need to do is consult with an attorney who is knowledgeable in copyright law. Once you start editing/adding video/pictures, you are essentially creating a new work using elements that you don’t have permission to use. I believe that because you are using it for student use is immaterial, but that is why you need a lawyer.
Peter -
Read the following thread. It is very instructive about rights policy. Basically, if it’s a copyrighted work you need a license to use it. The non-profit rationale or “it’s for educational purposes” rationale is basically hogwash.
John
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Are you kidding me? If it’s terrible advice, go find an authorized document saying that copyrighted music is prohibited from all school use.
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It’s a “Public Performance” issue. Many of you are confusing the protection of copyrighted compositions and recordings with public performance rights of protected recordings.
Protected recordings and the rights afforded to those who purchase those recording allows for reproduction for private use by the individual (copying to ipod, etc.). As the current laws read, ANY public performance (of recordings), without permission, is not allowed. That would include schools, non-profits, and even private events such as weddings. In the real world, however, it is generally acceptable practice to allow for public performance of protected recordings by schools and churches for a single event, as long as there is no profit associated with the event (i.e., no admission charges and no donations)
See this site for some more information. https://www.harryfox.com/index.jsp
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Also see this site for public performance permission – https://www.bmi.com/
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The piece of advice that I once received regarding copywritten material. Copywright means that you do NOT have the “Right to copy”.
That means duplicating it and/or modifiying it.Ray Palmer, Engineer
Salt River Project
Phoenix, AZ
602-236-8224 office
There are three types of people in this world, those that can count and those that can’t.
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