Q. Can I use a film/movie from the library in my class or for a campus event (e.g. film festival, student club movie night, etc.)?

Showing a Library-provided Film (DVD, online streaming video, etc.) to a Class

Showing a library-provided film or a personal copy of a film in a class is covered under the Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. The material presented should be directly related to the course and for officially registered students only.

DVDs and Physical Media

Some physical DVDs in the library's collection are purchased with public performance rights (PPR). To identify if a DVD has PPR, look at the "Details" section of the full record in RaptorSearch. If PPR are available, there will be a note for Terms Governing Use and Reproduction that indicates "Public performance rights for education granted; no admission fees permitted" or something similar.

Streaming Videos

All videos on BBC Shakespeare Plays, Docuseek2, and Films on Demand come with public performance rights.

For Academic Video Online Premium, PPR is available for all videos except those produced by FILM PLATFORM or National Theatre.

To determine PPR availability for Kanopy videos, you either need to click on “See More” for a film and then look for the “PPR” icon or do a search and then limit the result to “PPR Available”.

In all above cases where public performance rights are available, no admission fees can be charged and, while it may not be specifically required by each platform, it’s better to assume that advertising to non-MC affiliated users is not permitted, even if restricting attendance to MC-users isn’t required.

What Do I Do If We Don't Have Public Performance Rights for a Film I Want to Use?

If the library-provided film you want to show outside of a classroom setting does not include PPR, you must contact the copyright holder to obtain PPR before showing the film. Individuals and organizations are responsible for obtaining PPR.

• Copyright Licensing Agents
  • Motion Picture Licensing Corporation is an independent copyright licensing agency that provides the Umbrella License to ensure copyright compliance for the public performance of motion pictures.
  • Swank Motion Pictures, Inc., founded in 1937, is the major non-theatrical movie distributor and public performance licensing agent in venues where feature movies are shown publicly.
  • Movie Licensing US.  A division of Swank Motion Pictures. 
  • Criterion Pictures USA is one of the largest non-theatrical providers of feature films in North America. In the United States, Criterion has exclusive relationships with some of Hollywood's largest film Studios, such as Paramount Pictures (select titles only), 20th Century Fox, Fox SearchLight, DreamWorks Animation, Troma Films, New Concorde, among others.
• Non-Library Subscription Streaming Services (e.g. Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, etc.)
  • Use of films from personal streaming service subscriptions is governed by the third-party agreement you agree to when signing up for the service, the terms of which supersede your rights under U.S. Copyright Law. You should under no circumstances show a film from a personally subscribed-to streaming service, whether inside or outside of the classroom, unless you have obtained permission directly from the streaming service itself.

Learn more about using copyrighted materials in the classroom on the library's guide for faculty.