Tue
May
08
2007

Copyright issues again - some progress?

As the issue of copyright for all sorts of media that churches use continues to dog those of us involved in ministry, two interesting aspects of this arose on the Sydney Anglicans web site this week.

First, there was this article detailing how a new license will be available soon to allow the screening of some media – such as movie clips – in church.

To quote: “The licence applies to segments of films or full-length features. However it will not cover the use of unauthorised copies or material recorded from television.“

Not a bad step forward, even though not all movie material is covered, due to producer or studio restrictions.

But then this thread in the SydAngs forum pops up about the article.
It was started by Neil Foster a “…a lecturer in law, formerly teacher of Intellectual Property law, and an evangelical Christian…” who is concerned that the article is slightly misleading. He says this:

The second sentence of the article on “Screening licences” is unfortunately wrong, and in a way which will suggest that some have been breaching copyright law when they have not. The problem lies in the suggestion that churches are breaking the law by “screening any part of a pre-recorded film in church without permission”. The suggestion is repeated later in the article when reference is made to “segments of films”.

Neil goes on:

Films and videos are indeed protected under the Copyright Act 1968, and one of the exclusive rights of a copyright owner is to cause the film to be seen in public (section 86(b) of the Act).
But under s 14(1)(a) of the Act copyright will only be breached where that is done “in relation to a substantial part” of the film. It seems fairly clear that showing an insubstantial portion of a film would not amount to a breach of the Act. Of course what amounts to “substantial” can be a matter for debate, but I would have thought showing even up to 5 minutes of a normal-length feature film would not amount to showing a “substantial part”.

If this is correct, this is good news indeed!
It means I can use the clip from a movie this Friday night at a youth group talk, and in church in a couple of weeks.

I really hope all this can be clarified soon so that we know what we can and can’t do legally…

Posted by Neil, 8 May 07
Filed under: ,
§

Comment

  1. You will find a response to this comment by Neil in this month’s Southern Cross. Unfortunately law is always on the move and you always need to check the latest case law. That case law is against Neil’s interpretation. It does still leave open the issue of whether the bits that Christians might decide to use would be considered the quality bits and therefore infringe. The bottom line is that the license (provided the clip is covered) is the safest way to proceed. I understand the Mel Gibson’s movie the Passion is not covered by the license.

    — Steven Nicholson · Jun 7, 04:18 PM · #

  2. Yeah, I saw the response in SC. Perhaps one day the lawyers will sort themselves out!
    Frankly, until the law can sort itself out, it seems to me that showing short clips shouldn’t bother us too much. The license available does cover the vast majority of studios and distirbutors (and not having ‘the passion’ is no loss to me!), and so will be a useful tool.

    — NeilA · Jun 8, 05:14 AM · #

Commenting is closed for this article.