[OPLINTECH] online storytime videos

[Nathan Eady]

"Christy Clark" <Christy at muskingumlibrary.org> writes:

> Does anyone know the copyright rules for posting videos of our
> children's librarians reading a story on our webpage (via youtube)?

I'm guessing the story is under copyright.  

If you read a story that is in the public domain, then of course you are
in the clear.  Anything published in the United States prior to about
1920 (I don't recall the exact year at the moment) is in the public
domain, and many works published up through the middle of the twentieth
century fell into the public domain when their copyrights were not
renewed.  (At that time, copyright could be renewed only if the
copyright holder took action to renew it; such is no longer the case.)

Assuming that the story in question *is* under copyright, then the rules
for this are somewhat complicated, or at least you hope the rules are
complicated, because it's the complications that might allow you to do
what you are doing.  If the complicated stuff doesn't apply, then the
simple rule would say you aren't allowed.

I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, but specific
complications you might look into, which might potentially be construed
in such a way as to make what you're doing legal (at least arguably),
are the "educational purposes" provision of fair use doctrine and/or the
idea that your use of the content is "transformative".  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_(law)

To the best of my knowledge, neither of these is a slam dunk for your
situation, and it is not entirely obvious that what you are doing is
legal.  Like I said, IANAL.  If it becomes at all likely that lawyers
may become involved, you should definitely consult an intellectual
property laywer of your own before proceeding.

The fact that you aren't making any money would help to limit damages if
things went against you in court, but I suppose you don't prefer things
to get to that point in the first place if it can be avoided.

If you are unwilling to hire a laywer if it comes to that, the safe
course of action is to withdraw the videos from distribution, especially
via the public internet.  (What you do purely locally is significantly
less likely to land you in court, although it's not categorically
impossible; putting things on the public internet, however, makes it
very much more likely that anyone who minds will notice and take some
kind of action.  Such is the nature of the internet.)

I've also assumed that you're posting a video wherein the entire story
is read from start to finish, more or less verbatim.  If you were
including a short clip of your children's librarian reading a small
portion of a story, within a larger video depicting various library
programs and activities, for example, that would be significantly more
likely to be ruled Fair Use.  Similarly, a substantially non-verbatim
retelling of a story might be judged altogether free of copyright
encumbrances, because copyright protects only specific expressions
(e.g., words and sentences), not ideas.

> We have been doing this for quite a while 
  
That history might protect you somewhat in the case of a trademark
dispute, but it's not going to help you with the copyright issue.

Either your use is legally Fair Use, or it's not.  Based on what you've
said, I'm not convinced anyone other than an IP laywer could answer this
question reliably.  If I had to guess, I'd probably guess that what
you're doing is likely not quite transformative enough and not quite
educational enough to qualify as Fair Use.  This is only a guess.  I
could easily be wrong.  IANAL,ATINLA.

HTH.HAND.

-- 
Nathan Eady
Galion Public Library