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We all love to use movies in our ELT classroom. But what are the risk? Are we breaking the law when we show a DVD or BluRay that was copied? Or is it illegal to show a movie that we rented from our local Blockbuster video store?

The following article deals with the U.S. Copyright Laws. Feel free to send us those copyright laws that apply in your country.

ISSUES OF U.S. COPYRIGHT LAW RELATING TO
THE USE OF MOVIES IN THE CLASSROOM

Rented or Purchased Movies May Be Played By Teachers Without a License in the Classrooms of Public Schools and Nonprofit Educational Institutions

Section 110(1) of Title 17 of the United States Code grants a specific exemption from the copyright laws for:
performance or display of a work by instructors or pupils in the course of face-to-face teaching activities of a nonprofit educational institution, in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction, unless, in the case of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, the performance, or the display of individual images, is given by means of a copy that was not lawfully made under this title, and that the person responsible for the performance knew or had reason to believe was not lawfully made ….
This means that no license from the copyright holder is required when a teacher at a public school or non-profit educational institution uses a lawfully purchased or rented copy of a movie in classroom instruction. It doesn’t matter who purchased or rented the film, so long as it was legally obtained. The exemption is granted for “face-to-face” teaching activities only. This means that the teacher (or a substitute teacher) must be present. The exemption covers a “classroom or similar place devoted to instruction". This gives teachers some flexibility. For example, it is likely that a gymnasium used for large educational presentations in which several classes are convened together would be covered so long as a teacher presented the film. Note that remotely accessing a film from a central memory storage facility is probably not permitted. See 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a).

It is illegal to circumvent technological measures that effectively control access to copyrighted works, such as digital locks, to make compilations of scenes from various movies. Title 17 U.S. Code § 1201(a)(1)(A). However renting or purchasing a movie and showing a small portion of it and then taking it out of the DVD or VHS player and putting in another does not involve circumventing any type of lock.