Copyright and Fair Use

When you buy, rent, or borrow a streaming film or DVD, of a movie, TV show, or any other audiovisual work made by someone else (referred to here generally as “film” for short), you normally obtain only the copy, and not the underlying copyright rights to the film. You are free to watch the film yourself, or with your family and a few friends, but most things beyond that are prohibited by law. You do not have the right to show the film to “the public.” In most cases, doing that requires a separate “public performance” license (often referred to as "PPR" short for "Public Performance Rights") from the copyright owner.

To determine whether you need a license, you must determine whether your film screening would constitute a “public performance.” If it does, there may be exceptions that would allow you to proceed without a license.

YES -- you need public performance rights:

• If the showing of the video is open to the public, such as a screening at a public event, OR
• If the showing is in a public space where access is not restricted, such as a a showing of a film for a class but in a venue that is open to anyone to attend, OR
• If persons attending are outside the normal circle of family and friends, such as a showing of a film by a club or organization.

NO -- you do not need public performance rights:

• If you are privately viewing the film in your home with only family and friends in attendance, OR
• If you are an instructor showing the film in class as part of the course curriculum to officially enrolled students in a classroom that is not open to others to attend, OR
• If the film is in the public domain.
• If the film is available in Films on Demand, or the NCLIVE Video Collection. Please inquire about Kanopy titles. 

(Guilford Library)

Is there an applicable exception to the license requirement?

Even if your proposed screening will constitute a “public performance”, you still will not need to obtain a license if any of the following is true:

• You will be showing the movie in the course of “face-to-face teaching activities” (that is, not through digitization or other forms of electronic transmission) that will take place in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction (that is, not in an auditorium or other public venue, unless it is being used for, and restricted to participants in, the teaching activities), and you have a legitimate copy of the movie (which, in general, does not include one that you have recorded yourself from a broadcast or something posted on YouTube).
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"Nonprofit educational institutions can record television programs trans­mitted by network television and cable stations. The institution can keep the tape for 45 days, but can only use it for instructional purposes during the first ten of the 45 days. After the first ten days, the video recording can only be used for teacher evaluation purposes, to determine whether or not to include the broadcast program in the teaching curriculum. If the teacher wants to keep it within the curriculum, he or she must obtain permission from the copyright owner. The recording may be played once by each individual teacher in the course of related teaching activities in classrooms and similar places devoted to instruction (including formalized home instruction). The recorded program can be repeated once if necessary, although there are no standards for determining what is and is not necessary. After 45 days, the recording must be erased or destroyed.

A video recording of a broadcast can be made only at the request of and only used by individual teachers. A television show may not be regularly recorded in anticipation of requests—for example, a teacher cannot make a standing request to record each episode of a PBS series. Only enough copies may be reproduced from each recording to meet the needs of teachers, and the recordings may not be combined to create teaching compilations. All copies of a recording must include the copyright notice on the broadcast program as recorded and (as mentioned above) must be erased or destroyed after 45 days." Stanford Copyright Guide