Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Georgia

We built our own private movie room in the basement complete with a 16-foot screen. We figured why keep it to ourselves when we could be making new friends by sharing the love with our community? So we made a Meetup page and advertise free movies at our house. By using Meetup we can meet new people as well as get a head count for who is going to be there for any given movie. The majority of our guests are already friends of ours, we just use Meetup to manage the head count and invite new people to join our circle of friends. Up until this point we've been footing the bill for everything, not just the Meetup dues but also all of the food because we are worried about running afoul of the copyright laws which are less than crystal clear. But it's getting to be too much. So here's the deal, right now we're looking at something that is clearly within the bounds of a private showing. It costs nothing at all to attend and it's in our home. Would we be stepping out of the safety zone and risking a lawsuit from the MPAA if we were to start asking everyone who comes to chip in for pizza? Thanks in advance for your help, and please share links or references if you have them.


Asked on 6/30/10, 8:14 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Glen Ashman Ashman Law Office also dba Glen Ashman Attorney

What ypu propose is clearly illegal for two reasons.

First, if you charge, you are running a movie theatre and restaurant if you charge a group. That probably violates your local business license and zoning rules.

Second, you are clearly violating copyright laws. The penalties could easily be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per showing. (Copyright laws are crystal clear on this. It's not a close call.)

And since you advertise this online, you likely will get caught.

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Answered on 7/01/10, 8:52 am


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