I want to show a movie clip in a public talk. Is this legal?

September 26, 2013 7:06 PM

I'm giving a public talk about Goldbach's Conjecture. There is a crazy Spanish movie in which a character is famous for having proved the conjecture. Can I show a clip or two from this movie in my public talk? The talk will be in a bar, and there's a $5 suggested donation, so I don't know if that counts as charging people (if that affects the legality of my idea). Thanks!
posted by middlethird to Law & Government (8 answers total)

Generally speaking this is a fair use type of situation which means no one will be able to authoritatively tell you that yes you can do this. A very strict letter-of-the-law move would be to find a way to procure public performance rights and pay fees and whatever. A very loosey-goosey person would say "Hey man, do whatever" I think you should look at what constitutes Fair Use, then think a bit about whether the people who own the copyright are likely to go after you if they find out you did this and then think about what your defense would be. Using small bits of copyrighted works in educational contexts (are you a teacher for a job? look into the TEACH act also) that don't diminish the work's value should be fine. That said, it's only fine if, after the fact, you didn't wind up getting sued. This is the sort of thing that I would do without a moment's hesitation. You are not me and you'll have to assess your risk tolerance yourself.
posted by jessamyn at 7:14 PM on September 26, 2013 [4 favorites]

Fair use! Just want to clarify that if you are doing falls within the boundaries of fair use, and I believe it does, then you are following the letter of the law. Fair use is written into the US copyright code as surely as everything else.
posted by mercredi at 7:38 PM on September 26, 2013

The body of law that governs this is 17 USC § 107.

Under whose aegis are you doing this? I ask because some small amount of money changing hands does not automatically make you "for profit". Your purpose seems to be educational, and it doesn't sound like you'll be showing a significant amount of the film which puts you pretty deeply into the realm of "reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson", so I'm with Jessamyn.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 10:07 PM on September 26, 2013

Response by poster: Thanks everybody! I am a professor, but this wouldn't be for my job (although "service" is one of my job duties, I guess). My talk would be for a local nonprofit that runs a series of science talks at pubs for the general public, so the purpose is definitely educational. I imagine I'd show a few minutes of the film at most. The pub would be selling beer while I talk too, I suppose. But you've convinced me. I consider myself allowed to do this now. Thanks!
posted by middlethird at 12:00 AM on September 27, 2013

You should probably ask the bar - I agree with jessamyn about the legality of it and the likelihood of getting sued, but if the bar has gotten in trouble over performance/license stuff in the past (e.g. sued by the cable company) they might not want you to.
posted by mskyle at 7:51 AM on September 27, 2013

The ALA has a nice evaluating tool here You answer some questions about your project, and your use is placed on a scale of fair-use. It generates a PDF report as well that you can use to document your decision.
posted by Sybil Stockwell Oop at 8:08 AM on September 27, 2013

It's unlikely that you'll end up in legal proceedings over this, but fair use is a defense and will not excuse you from legal proceedings; it just helps you get out of them.
posted by Sunburnt at 9:55 AM on September 27, 2013

For people coming to this later, expanding on what Sunburnt said, anybody with a ball point pen and the filing fees can, if they want, try to sue you. How successful they'll be in a court of law is another question, but the chilling effect is definitely a thing and there are plenty of business models that basically involve threatening to sue anything that moves in hopes of an out of court settlement that will be cheaper to you than fighting the law suit, no matter how frivolous it might be.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 10:47 AM on October 6, 2013