It's Only Rock 'n' Roll

Can teachers delete objectionable words from music videos?

By Carrie Russell -- School Library Journal, 5/1/2004

We recently purchased a set of videos on the history of rock 'n' roll. Our music teacher found that they contained some "inappropriate" words and he would like to make an edited copy of the videos. Is that legal?
—Andrea Dennehy, librarian, Freedom Middle School, Fredericksburg, VA

Once a copy of a protected work is lawfully acquired, the copy's owner can dispose, lend, rent, or sell that work. Why? Because of the first-sale doctrine, which allows owners of copies to give them to another person. But can the owner physically distort or manipulate the work? If I buy a book, may I write in the margins or highlight sections or rip out pages? It's my book, after all. Some people argue that when I manipulate the work in these ways, I'm creating a derivative work, therefore exercising a right of copyright not covered by the first-sale doctrine (which is limited to the right of distribution). If we agree with this argument, then editing the videos would be an infringement of copyright.

I've suggested in the past that creating a derivative work for example, editing inappropriate words from videos—could be a fair use, especially since the edited copy is not being sold or marketed beyond the classroom and there are no children's versions of the videos available for purchase. There is a copyright case pending where the film companies are suing a video retail business that sells edited versions of videos. The argument is that the retailer is changing the video in ways that were not intended by the creator, infringing copyright by creating a derivative work, and financially benefiting from video sales without compensating the copyright holder.

I lean toward a fair-use determination in your school's situation, but a ruling in the above case will surely affect my opinion (which is not a legal one, remember). I also know that there are DVD playback machines that can "bleep out" inappropriate language as the movie is being played, thereby affecting only that particular performance of the DVD, not the actual copy of the DVD. This, too, has copyright implications because even though the copy is not permanently altered, the audience is still viewing a derivative work. To further complicate matters, the U.S. copyright law does not include "moral rights" (except for a narrow exception to fine-arts photographers in the Visual Artist Rights Act). So protecting the integrity of an artist's original work is not recognized as a copyright.

Our students often use images from the Internet in their reports and projects. If the images aren't copyrighted, is that acceptable? Also, do students need to cite the Web sites from which they imported the images?
—Patricia Poppe, library media specialist, East Rockaway (NY) Schools

For strictly educational purposes, I would argue that the students who include copyright-protected images from the Internet in their assignments are exercising fair use. Be sure that the finished assignments are not distributed any further than the classroom or school. Of course, teachers should take the opportunity to explain to students that many of the images they downloaded are protected by copyright, and it is only in fair-use situations that copying the images without prior authorization is acceptable. While attributing the images to their original creators in citations is not a copyright concern, it's the ethical thing to do, whether or not the images are protected by copyright.

Some of our software has become obsolete, and I was planning to offer it to our staff. However, I am wondering: Would there be a problem, since most of the software is licensed to our school (even though they are single copies)?
—Peggy Hodge, library media teacher, Valley Middle School, Carlsbad (CA) Unified School District

I cannot give you a definitive answer about giving away software. The answer would depend on the license terms agreed to when the software was purchased. Even if the software was purchased outright, and the copyright law including the first-sale doctrine applied, there may be technological protection measures "attached" to the software, preventing a new user from downloading the software, anyway.