Putting school productions on Youtube

[Renfield-64]

Hi all,

not sure if this is the right area to post this:

Our junior school often does mini stage productions at the school and I video them. I have suggested having a Youtube channel for the school where these can be uploaded.

The head teacher is in agreement as long as we do it correctly regarding child safety etc...

Has anyone else done this and if so what did you have to put in place. I know I can prevent searches within Youtube for our videos and so would give parents access via a web link.

[3s-gtech]

Don't rely on obscurity for security. If you send parents a web link, one of them will share that on their unsecured Facebook wall and you may as well not have bothered.

 

You need to look at parental consent. There was a good in-depth discussion on here recently about this specifically around school plays. The agreement was that an opt-out policy is not sufficient, so you would need the parent(s) of each students to give their written consent. You would also struggle if a child wasn't allowed to take part if this consent isn't given. It's a minefield, but can work if carefully planned and the paperwork double-checked.

[Renfield-64]

I agree with your first sentence.

I don't see why and opt-out policy isn't sufficient though. When children join the school the parents are told that photos and videos may be taken and used in school publications and on the website (full names of course will not be disclosed). Parents have the option of opting out of this arrangement.

[elsiegee40]

Firstly, what licenses does your school purchase with the script for the productions? Do they include the rights to record and broadcast the production. Check carefully you may have to purchase a different license with the script before doing this. Similarly for music that is recorded - are you covered for recording and broadcasting that?

 

Next consider the kids in your productions. We had a debate on this recently on Edugeek; see here http://www.edugeek.net/forums/behind-red-door/177853-urgent-request-comments-about-school-play-videos.html

 

The summary was that you need to have explicit permission from every parent before you could put this out in the wide world of the interweb or even sell/give it on DVD.

 

Do you exclude children from your productions because they're not allowed to be photographed? Thought not; it's not fair. Those refused permissions may be for very serious reasons such as domestic abuse or adoptive/foster parents stopping birth parents from tracing a child. Either you will need to edit out the child(ren) concerned in every recording or you do have to cause uproar and prevent them from taking part.

Edited January 5, 2017 by elsiegee40

[Renfield-64]

I'm not sure about the licensing business but it's a point I hadn't considered.

 

We do have consent from parents as I said earlier (it's an opt out when they join the school). We don't want to exclude children whose parents have opted out but could give them backstage jobs as suggested by someone in the link you provided.

 

Slightly off the Youtube/video subject but we had photos taken of the children during a production they did at a local theatre. We have bought the photos from the media company and the staff member involved in the production wants to sell these onto parents of children that took part.

Do you think this could also be an issue? ( I realise that we would have to check with the media company about what we are allowed to do with the photos).

[elsiegee40]

Slightly off the Youtube/video subject but we had photos taken of the children during a production they did at a local theatre. We have bought the photos from the media company and the staff member involved in the production wants to sell these onto parents of children that took part.

 

Do you think this could also be an issue? ( I realise that we would have to check with the media company about what we are allowed to do with the photos).

Yes it could be an issue!

@GrumbleDook is good for words of wisdom on the legalities of all this.

[GrumbleDook]

I'm not sure about the licensing business but it's a point I hadn't considered.

 

We do have consent from parents as I said earlier (it's an opt out when they join the school). We don't want to exclude children whose parents have opted out but could give them backstage jobs as suggested by someone in the link you provided.

 

Opt-out is not suitable and I would recommend you read the thread linked earlier for a full breakdown of the previously had discussion ... there are some important concepts in there about it.

 

Slightly off the Youtube/video subject but we had photos taken of the children during a production they did at a local theatre. We have bought the photos from the media company and the staff member involved in the production wants to sell these onto parents of children that took part.

Do you think this could also be an issue? ( I realise that we would have to check with the media company about what we are allowed to do with the photos).

 

Was the production one run by the school or by another organisation? If run by the school then you are still in teh same position ... opt-in is needed ... and the media company involved may have already done this for you (I would hope so) ... so it is down to selling the photographs ... which is a copyright question of the media company.

If it was someone else who did the production then you need to check they did a permission slip and what was in it. If it doesn't say that the photos could be sold, etc. then you have an issue with how the data is being processed, etc.

I would check with the media company involved no matter what and see what they have / haven't done.

Be aware that just because the company has said that have done something, you need evidence to prove it. Just taking someone's word that 'it is all ok, you can do what you want' is not an acceptable excuse.

 

Your Designated Safeguarding Lead should be aware of what is going on as well, so keep them in the loop.

[Renfield-64]

Ok thanks folks. I think I'll point out to the head teacher that she'll have to take responsibility.

[TechMonkey]

Just to add, I've not fully looked into it but from parts of the new data protection regulations (GDPR) I've looked at opt-out is explicitly frowned upon. Explicit consent is the only way to go. Now OK, those rules will probably not come into force until 2018 but may as well implement and get used to them now.