Legal Question in Technology Law in Nevada

School's band wants me to make a video

my high school band is having a concert in about 6 weeks. were doing john williams music (movie Music ). and my teacher wants a short video for the movie music that were playing. most of the clips are around 40 sec to 2 minutes long. with the longest being 2 minutes.

so I want to know if i can do this for my band, I'm worried that I mite break some copy wright laws?

I know you have to give credit at the end, and this is a free concert, so were not charging anything. and there not full movies.

But I want to make sure before i start.

Thank you


Asked on 4/07/08, 10:52 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Charles Lombino Lombino Law Studio, Ltd.

Re: School's band wants me to make a video

There are two copyrights in question concerning the music. The performance will be by your band, so the performance copyright is owned by your band.

The copyright in the music is owned by someone else (John Williams Record Company?). Assuming the school purchased the sheet music, the school probably purchased a license to perform the music at the time. If so, then as far as the music is concerned, you can record it for the school.

If not, short excerpts of portions of the performance (two minutes is probably too long, maybe 15-30 seconds) might be fair use as newsworthy or educational. There are specific guidelines for educational fair use that I do not address here.

Be careful to create the video in a public place. That way any audience or other people the recording catches will be free of issues. If you focus on an audience member, a person on the street, or even a band member for a period of time, then get a release. You can record the release on the video if you get the spoken agreement of the person involved, and save the video.

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Answered on 4/07/08, 1:02 pm


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