Level 2
Video in the Classroom
Let me get this straight. Using the four factors, I can only use small portions of a work, such as a video. What about showing videos in class?
This is a great question. How is it that teachers can show a whole movie in the classroom? To explain this, we need to learn a little bit more about the copyright law and the classroom use exemption.
What’s the classroom use exemption?
Copyright law places a high value on educational uses. The Classroom Use Exemption (17 U.S.C. §110(1) only applies in very limited situations, but where it does apply, it gives some pretty clear rights. In-class viewing is a public performance, but it’s permitted under the Classroom Use Exemption.
To qualify for this exemption, you must: be in a classroom (“or similar place devoted to instruction”). Be there in person, engaged in face-to-face teaching activities, and be at a nonprofit educational institution. Sounds a little restrictive?
If (and only if!) you meet these conditions, the exemption gives both instructors and students broad rights to perform or display any works. That means instructors can play movies and music for their students, at any length (though not from illegitimate copies!). Instructors can show students images, or original artworks. Students can perform arias, read poems, and act out scenes. And students and instructors can do all these things without seeking permission, without giving anyone payment, and without having to deal with the complications of fair use.
Sounds great, right? But this law doesn’t apply to all situations. The Classroom Use Exemption does not apply outside the nonprofit, in-person, classroom teaching environment! It doesn’t apply online—even to wholly course-related activities and course websites. It doesn’t apply to interactions that are not in-person—even simultaneous distance learning interactions. It doesn’t apply at for-profit educational institutions.
The Classroom Use Exemption also only authorizes performance or display. If you are making or distributing copies (i.e., handing out readings in class), that is not an activity that the Classroom Use Exemption applies to.
Video: In this video, the Library of Congress explains the classroom use exemption
So if I am a teacher, I can’t show a movie as a reward?
Fair use and the classroom use exception have one important thing in common—they support teaching and learning through media like videos. If the video meets your learning objectives for your classroom and content area, than those laws apply. There are many videos that do! As current and future teachers, it is important to make intentional choices of our use of technology.
Video: What’s the educational purpose of your movie? Learn more in this video.
Ok. So I found a blockbuster video related to my content, and I want to show the entire movie to my students. What’s next?
Some school districts have policies or forms about showing movies in the classroom. One great strategy is to send home a no