Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Use of Video in Church

I am a person who has used video an awful lot in Church and last week decided to start writting a how to guide for our Diocese. First thing I looked at was what we can and can't do legaly...
Needless to say what we can use is not what I thought. Unless we have permission from the production companies in NZ we cannot legaly show any Movie clips - to do so is a breach of copyright under the copyright act of 1984. However should the producers give permission and apparently they often do then a certification needs to be given to the clip from the Film and Video Publications Board. The same rule applies to Movie Traliers in spite of the fact that many are made Public Domain through being put on the internet
Exceptions are made for educational establishments under the same act however the church is not an educational establishment. s.48 of the Copyright Act 1994.
However if you want to show a clip from a TV show that is possible through the purchasing of a license through Screenrights, the Audio-Visual Copyright Society Ltd.
However if you want to show a music video you can do that APRA whose responaibility is music have an industry standard that sees Church use in the context of worship as carrying the same rights as use in a house.

So if you want to show Kylie - that's oK - but Don't think showing Aslan as a modle of attonement is - it isn't - unless it's the BBC version with the stuffed Lion....

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