The provision of the Copyright Act that governs the showing of movies in the classroom is Section 110. Under Section 110 of the Copyright Act, movies may be shown in class provided all of the following conditions are met:

• The performance must be by instructors or by pupils and be directly related to the course’s curricular goals.
• The performance is in connection with face-to-face teaching activities.
• The entire audience is involved in the teaching activity.
• The entire audience is in the same room or same general area.
• The teaching activities are conducted by a non-profit education institution.
• The performance takes place in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction.
• The person responsible for the performance has no reason to believe that the DVD or videotape was unlawfully made.

Media, e.g. pictures, videos, mp3s, movs, apvs, etc., are becoming more prevalent in the classroom, and you need to understand how copyright law affects your use and manipulation of these types.  The basic premise of copyright is that you are free to use the materials during classroom instruction, but you may not archive them, share them beyond the classroom, or convert between formats.  These are general premises that do have exceptions in certain situations.

Some things to think about are:

• Did you download the image from the Internet?
• Did you use screen capture software to copy a video image?
• Did you get an audio file from a friend via email?
• Did someone send you a copy of unreleased material, e.g. audio, video, etc.?
• Did you convert your favorite video from VHS to DVD?

Misuse of these types of materials is a potential violation of copyright.  It is important to remember that just because it lacks a copyright symbol or was found on the Internet does not mean it is in the public domain.  Many images both still and moving are copyrighted and appear on the Internet in violation of current copyright law.  Just because you found it on Google does not mean you can use it without permission.

• Illustrations or photographs:
  • No more than five images from one artist or photographer
  • No more than 10% or fifteen images, whichever is less, from a collection
• Motion media:
  • Up to 10% of the total item or three minutes, whichever is less
• Music, lyrics, and music video:
  • Up to 10% of the total work but no more than 30 seconds of the music or lyrics from an individual musical work
• Numerical data sets:
  • Up to 10% or 2,500 fields or cell entries, whichever is less, of the total work
• Copying a multimedia project:
  • There may be no more than two copies made of a project

NOTE: Please remember that the guidelines above only define the limits of fair use. If you are intending to use a project for commercial or non-educational purposes or are intending to duplicate and distribute the project beyond the scope permitted by these above guidelines, you must first obtain permission to do so from the copyright holder of each copyrighted work included within the project.

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video