Chuckster Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 The HT has ripped every single one of his CDs into MP3 format and has dumped it on a shared area for staff to play in assemblies when entering and leaving. I know for a fact that no one will download the MP3s and use it for their own personal usage, but does it infringe on copyright issues? If so, could you post a link to the statement?
plexer Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 Absolutely, format shifting i.e from CD to MP3 is illegal. Ben
plexer Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 However Latest News Says that the music industry has no problem with format shifting for private use, not sure you can class this as private use though. Ben
Oaktech Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 does the school have a PRS licence? I think it MAY be OK, provided the CD's were all legitamately purchased and the school is PRS licenced to play music. But i'm not a lawyer!
featured_spectre Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 PRS licence only covers if the school purchased said items
soveryapt Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 VERY Much illegal .. the school would have to have a format shifting license (similar to the Digital DJ License - Mechanical Copyright Protection Society Home) to allow the items to be moved for use on a single device .. but then ALL of the music that has been transferred would need to be owned by the school and not an individual member of staff .. The only other way round this would be for the head to purchase a produb license and to use their own hardware for playback of tracks in assembly .. It's an argument I keep having here. Staff come to me saying "the networks not working I can't access all of my music that I've saved to avoid bringing in my CDs from home" to which I say (as I'm a nice guy) I'll have a look, but really you shouldn't be storing music on the network if it doesn't belong to the school (one step at a time towards the whole ProDub thing - turn a blind eye kind of scenario) but next thing I know I get hauled in by the head and quizzed on various things, this being one of them, to which I reply that I had a look to see why the files weren't there, but technically as a school we shouldn't be copying music to be stored as it's illegal. So, I'm slowly filtering the information in, but yes, it is illegal unless you have the right license in place, and I'm not even sure there is an equivalent license that doesn't cost the earth for schools.
Oaktech Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 right... I stand partially corrected... The school still needs a PRS licence. But it needs to get busy with the credit card and buy it's own!
Chuckster Posted October 19, 2011 Author Posted October 19, 2011 Let's say, for example, the school didn't buy the CDs and were all personally obtained, which it is, are we not covered under the terms of PRS? I don't think for a moment we even have a PRS license. :\
featured_spectre Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 No you are not covered, they need to be purchased by the school with a tax traceable invoice
Oaktech Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 these days you can't even play the radio in a place of work without a PRS licence!
Chuckster Posted October 19, 2011 Author Posted October 19, 2011 Right, I've shooted off an e-mail to the Bursar asking if we have a PRS licence. In the meantime I've also realised that all of the staff regularly use their own music to burn onto CDs to use in school. Since they've been doing that long before I even started at this place, I can only assume we should have this licence already. If not, then it'll be surprising how auditors haven't picked up on this!
featured_spectre Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 Drop a note to the auditors. If you have made written requests to get this sorted and nothing is done, you are covered when the auditors come knocking!
soveryapt Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 does the school have a PRS licence? I think it MAY be OK, provided the CD's were all legitamately purchased and the school is PRS licenced to play music. But i'm not a lawyer! I think you'll find that unless you're paying for the right to transfer information from one format to another that you're not covered by a PRS License for this. What the licence allows you to do The licence granted by PRS for Music allows the public performance (in its original form), of any of their member's work on the licensed premises, by means of live recital or mechanical device such as tapes, CDs, radios. Taken from CEFM
rad Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 what about music files store in student areas? Where do we stand then?
User3204 Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 The only place I allow music, is when the staff member has installed iTunes, and attached it to their 'account' which means their assigned laptop is linked to their iTunes. I don't think this is entirely legal, but it's a lot closer to it than just ripping from a CD. Any music that the students have illegally copied to their own area is illegal, but since you can't be 100% sure they haven't done any uploads, as long as you have a process for regularly checking for MP3s this should hold off the BPE. Officially the only music we store is: 1. the stuff they are making for the qualifications. 2. any thing they have purchased for use in plays.
aerospacemango Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 I have to say that at my place, I regularly search both the staff and student servers for MP3s. Any that are found on the student server are automatically deleted. Any on the staff side, we generally drop a line to the member of staff explaining why they cannot have their music collection on College servers, and give them a time limit to remove. This is generally 1 week (the time between each search). I have also been known to rename music folders with something like "Should this be on a college server". People soon get the message. I would rather do this than worry about the legal complications. 1
SteveBentley Posted October 20, 2011 Posted October 20, 2011 I think you have to be careful with that approach - if you are known to regularly remove dodgy stuff, it could be seen as implying that anything you leave you are deeming to be legally ok. Then when something slips through the net and you get audited it's you that's facing the awkward questions rather than the member of staff who put the file there.
localzuk Posted October 20, 2011 Posted October 20, 2011 If a child has music on your system which is used as part of their coursework, then it is not infringement, it is exempted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (Section 32). Which is why I can't just go around wiping music on our server at my new school, as there are a good number of courses the kids take which involve video editing etc... However! If it is being used for this purpose, it must be accompanied by an acknowledgement of the copyright owner.
sonofsanta Posted October 20, 2011 Posted October 20, 2011 Regarding the PRS licence, if you're an LEA school you may find that you're covered there anyway. We don't actually buy any licences now as we're covered for PRS, PPL, CLA, PVSL, ERA+... through the county council. As others have said though, by the strict letter of the law, as it stands today - format shifting is illegal. There are plans to change it and the music industry has stated they don't give a monkey's, but it is, definitely, indubitably, still illegal.
ToyHeartsFan Posted October 20, 2011 Posted October 20, 2011 I would also suggest that sticking the files on a common drive is worse than format shifting because anyone in the school can copy them so you are effectively using the school server to share what are effectively pirated files.
Pyroman Posted October 20, 2011 Posted October 20, 2011 I would also suggest that sticking the files on a common drive is worse than format shifting because anyone in the school can copy them so you are effectively using the school server to share what are effectively pirated files. Yeah that what i thought, your saying to everyone "Here, take a copy for yourself"
Chuckster Posted October 21, 2011 Author Posted October 21, 2011 Finally got to the bottom of this and it turns out that getting the right licence to cover our backs is proving to be very expensive. The so-called "experts" have told the bursar that to get the licence the school would need to seek out every record company and ask their permission, and pay, to play the songs that they've produced. As a result of this, it's been decided we won't bother with it and make sure that nobody is to rip or store converted tracks on the school network. This has ultimately freed up 20GB of free space!!!
SteveBentley Posted October 24, 2011 Posted October 24, 2011 If a child has music on your system which is used as part of their coursework, then it is not infringement, it is exempted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (Section 32). Which is why I can't just go around wiping music on our server at my new school, as there are a good number of courses the kids take which involve video editing etc... However! If it is being used for this purpose, it must be accompanied by an acknowledgement of the copyright owner. I was led to believe that that was a bit of a grey area about whether coursework constituted an examination.
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