How can I show a movie to students... legally... in Japan?

September 27, 2007 10:43 PM

I'm a teacher at a for-profit English school in Japan and I want to display a few clips from movies and have students read-along with a script. The problem is, since our school isn't a non-profit, I don't know how to get the performance right, especially since I am in Japan. Is it worth pursuing? It is only for a few classes and not very important, but I thought it'd be a fun way for students to improve listening skills.... Thanks all!
posted by phaedrus441 to Law & Government (7 answers total)

IANAL, but given the educational setting and it being "clips" (not substantial portions of the movie?) this might fall under fair use. Or it might not, but it's worth looking into that possibility, I think.

Have you asked your school's librarian?
posted by hattifattener at 11:37 PM on September 27, 2007

Sounds like fair use under US law to me, but no idea what the equivalent Japanese copyright law is.

This might be a good starting point.
posted by Happy Dave at 11:38 PM on September 27, 2007

Response by poster: Ugggh, sadly, fair use only covers non-profit schools... It's a no go, I'm afraid...
posted by phaedrus441 at 2:44 AM on September 28, 2007

I teach English in a for-profit school in Latvia, and have done so before in Indonesia; there are dozens of films on the bookshelf in various forms, they all get used in classes, and we've done gap-fill and other exercises from scripts. (In Indonesia, most of our teacher development/resource were photocopies as well!)

I have no idea if it's illegal, especially in Japan; I would assume, however, that if your school has copies of movies, a VCR/DVD player, or even CD players in class used to play various audio clips that are not the property of the company, then they've settled this as something they're not going to worry about.

One possible solution might be finding the relevant clips on YouTube or elsewhere on the Internet and viewing them, without downloading them, via some sort of connection between the computer and a television, or by taking all your students to the computer lab, if you've got one. I've also used Creative Commons-licensed media in class, and taught my students how to find CC-licensed work on Flickr and elsewhere for their own projects, so that's another path you could take.

Good on you for at least thinking about this! E-mail's in the profile if you want some TEFL tips!
posted by mdonley at 3:02 AM on September 28, 2007

If they're on DVD, you could just turn the subtitles on instead of printing out a script. Would that make a difference?
posted by HeroZero at 4:26 AM on September 28, 2007

When I attended a Japanese private university (which I can only assume is for-profit) for a study abroad program, the Japanese staff had us watch entire movies with read-along scripts. I'd assume that if they did that without getting in trouble, you're probably good to go for mere clips.
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:26 AM on September 28, 2007

It's illegal in Japan, and absolutely nobody cares. If you were to release your classes as some sort of take-home video product, then there would be reason to worry, but the enforcement for things like in-class use is absolutely non-existent.

To make a comparison: legally speaking, stealing beef counts as cattle rustling in some places in Texas. And cattle rustling can be punished by hanging. But you can pretty much bet your entire life savings that if you steal a hamburger from a supermarket in Texas, you will not be given the death penalty.

Same type situation in Japan. What you're describing is illegal, but it totally doesn't matter. When you start publishing your classes, then you need to actually worry about it.
posted by Bugbread at 7:00 PM on September 28, 2007