Three Minutes, No Budget, Six Copyright Problems
The media club at a secondary school is producing a three-minute video for the school's 50th anniversary. It will be shown at a community event for about 300 people and posted publicly on the school's YouTube channel and Facebook page. The club has no budget and one borrowed laptop. The draft includes: the full length of a current soca track as background music; twelve scanned pages from a 2016 geography textbook showing a coastline map; a 40-second clip recorded from a television news broadcast about the school's science fair; photographs from the school's own archive, including one dated 1975 with no photographer named; a live recording of a former student's calypso, uploaded to YouTube by a fan; and a screenshot of a graph from a government website. One member says 'it's for school, so copyright doesn't apply' and another suggests 'just credit everyone in the credits and it's fine'.
1. Work through each of the six items and say whether it can be used, used with permission, used under a licence, or must be replaced, giving the reason.
Read the worked answer
- Soca track: replace. The composition and the sound recording are separate rights, and a publicly posted video is not covered by a classroom exception. Use production music under a Creative Commons licence and credit it.
- Textbook pages: replace or seek permission. Scanning twelve pages goes well beyond any reasonable quotation, and the publisher holds the map rights. Redraw the coastline from a public-domain or government source.
- TV news clip: 40 seconds is a substantial excerpt and the broadcaster owns it. Ask for permission, or link to the broadcast instead of embedding it.
- 1975 archive photo: use with caution. The school may own the physical print but not the copyright. Try to trace the photographer or the newspaper; if that fails, document the search and be ready to remove it on request.
- Fan-uploaded calypso: the uploader almost certainly does not hold the rights. Seek the composer, the performer and the owner of the recording.
- Government graph: often usable under an open government licence. Check the site's terms and credit the department.
2. Explain why 'it's for school' and 'we credited it' do not by themselves make the use lawful, and what an education exception typically does and does not cover.
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'It's for school' describes the audience, not the legal test. Education exceptions are usually narrow: they tend to cover classroom teaching, private study and examinations, and they typically do not cover public posting, community screenings or promotional use. A YouTube video is a publication, and the community event has an audience of 300 people who are not in a lesson.
'We credited it' is not a defence either. Credit is an ethical requirement and often a licence condition, but it does not create a right to use something in the first place. A licence or an exception has to exist before the credit matters.
The practical test for the club: is the work still recognisable, how much is used, and does the use compete with the owner's normal market? Twelve scanned pages and a full soca track fail that test, whatever the credits say.
3. Write a short permission request the club could send for the calypso recording, naming the rights holders and what to ask for.
Read the worked answer
Dear [calypsonian's name or estate],
I am [name], a student at [school]. Our media club is making a short video for the school's 50th anniversary, to be shown at a community event on [date] and posted on the school's YouTube channel.
We would like permission to use [title of calypso], recorded by [performer] in [year], in the three-minute video, non-commercially, with credit to you as composer and performer.
We would also like to know whether you own the rights to the recording; if not, could you tell us who does?
We can send the finished video for your approval before it is published, and we will remove it on request.
Thank you, [name], Media Club
Ask for the right, the duration, the territory, the credit wording and approval of the final cut, and keep the reply on file. That reply is what turns an unauthorised use into a licensed one.