Now Hear This: Carrie on Copyright

We broadcast our school’s morning announcements on a closed-circuit video system. During the broadcasts, we show student artwork and play various types of music—jazz, classical, opera, folk, etc.—from our library’s CD collection. Are we in compliance with the copyright law?

Transmitting music over a closed-circuit video system is a public performance, because it occurs at a place that’s open to the public, where more than a few friends or family members can hear the music. As you may know, the right of public performance is an exclusive right of the copyright holder and broadcasting music without prior authorization from the right’s holder is an infringement. Some public performances are fine, however, such as music that’s performed in public to satisfy a specific teaching objective.

Since the law doesn’t specifically address your situation, let’s do a fair-use analysis. I think your use is fair for the following reasons: (1) while the music is not being used strictly for educational purposes, your use is noncommercial; (2) only a small portion of each song is being played; (3) students are being exposed to different types of music, which is socially beneficial and could even lead to future CD sales; (4) the CDs were lawfully purchased; and (5) the juxtaposition of student art with the music uses the songs in a new way, which could be considered “transformative.” Also, another way of looking at it is, since your use of the music is relatively trivial and minor, there’s no need to worry about it.

Help! Is it a copyright infraction to buy a book and cut out some of its pages and display them in our school hallway?

I would argue that displaying pages from a book that you own is a fair use. Although the right to publicly display is exercised without securing prior authorization from the copyright holder, the negative effect on the work’s market is practically nil.

Your particular use is not-for-profit (factor one of fair use) and while it isn’t educational in the classroom sense, the display is restricted to your school’s hallway. As for fair use’s second factor—the nature of the publication—your use involves a creative, published work. Creative works tend to have more protection than factual works. The amount of the publication that you’re using is arguably the entire image (since each page could be considered to be a separate creative work). Thus, the second and third factors of fair use tend toward a determination that your use is unfair. But the final and fourth fair-use factor—the effect of your use on the work’s market—is in your favor, since posting book pages in the school doesn’t reduce the commercial demand or sales for the work. And even though individual pages may eventually be offered by the rights holder as posters, printed pages don’t take the place of posters. (Posters are higher quality reproductions.)

Librarians should remember that the law doesn’t require that a copyright holder be paid or notified every time a protected work is used. The purpose of the copyright law is to advance learning by making more works available to the public. Displaying pages of a book is a negligible use—one that’s highly unlikely to result in legal action.

My fourth-grade students are making podcasts (actually, book “commercials”) to encourage other kids to read. Is it OK to put a small picture of each book cover on our Web page?

This is a fair use. Remember, the law favors uses that are socially beneficial. Displaying the book covers and making podcasts to promote reading seems reasonable. These activities may also increase the books’ sales.