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Copyright

This guide provides information to Capilano University employees and students regarding copyright, licence agreements, and related topics. This guide does not provide legal advice.

Audiovisual: In the Classroom

Unless otherwise stated, Public Performance Rights are no longer necessary to show films/DVDs (including feature films, streaming video, and purchased TV programming on DVD) for educational purposes in a classroom setting.*

  • Only legally acquired media can be used
    •  titles from Capilano Library's streaming collection or physical collection
    •  your home purchased collection
    • videos borrowed from another library, unless otherwise stated on the video
  • Personal "on demand" subscriptions (iTunes, Bell, Rogers, Netflix, etc.) cannot be screened in class due to licensing restrictions.
    • Netflix has some original documentaries that are an exception to this, and are permitted to be used once per term for educational purposes. Netflix says: "we will permit one-time educational screenings - "one-time screening" means that you can't hold screenings several times in one day or one week, but if, for example, you're an educator who wants to show the film once a semester over multiple semesters, that's okay." Please see details for Netflix Educational Screenings of Documentaries.
  • Online video feeds must be:
    • legally posted online. For example, you cannot show a scene from the film The Matrix, posted online by someone called johnsmith12345.
    • free of notices that ban the use of the material in educational settings.

Television and radio programming can be screened in classrooms at the time of broadcast.

Recording live radio and television broadcasts to playback in face to face classrooms, can be done within certain restrictions. Please contact the Copyright Librarian for more information.

*Please note that some films/DVDs in CapU Library Collection do carry restrictions. These restrictions will be noted on the item's catalogue record.

 
Courses Delivered Remotely

For more information on multimedia in courses delivered remotely, visit the Online Classes - Videos, DVD, Steaming page. 

Audiovisual: Outside the Classroom

Capilano has entertainment licences for Audio Ciné Films and Criterion Pictures that allows broader use rights outside the ordinary classroom context:

  • The films can be shown anywhere on campus.
  • The film can be shown by someone other than an instructor, e.g. a student club, a staff training event.
  • The audience can include students and staff, with some members of the public present

However:

  • The event must be free to attend -- no cost or cover charge. Showing films at charity fund-raisers is allowed, but only when the cost is purely by donation
  • The licence covers only films that have been released for rental and home purchase; films still in theatrical release are not covered.
  • The primary audience of the event must be members of the institution. Event advertising must be limited to media targeted at the university/college and its students and staff. In the case of print advertising, the advertisements may only appear in campus media (e.g. a student newspaper) and not in general community newspapers.

Is the film you want to show covered by a licence? Check here:

*Please note that some films/DVDs in CapU Library Collection do carry restrictions. These restrictions will be noted on the item's catalogue record.