Each of our elementary school grades performs a show for students and parents. Are we allowed to use a copyrighted song, such as a Beatles tune, and change its lyrics for the performance? Also, can we sell DVDs of the showsto parents?

—Nancy Cantor, media specialist
University School of Nova Southeastern University,
Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Essentially, you’re modifying a protected work and recording the performance for parents. I wouldn’t worry about it. Your use has absolutely no impact on the market for the work. Instead, children are using the songs to be creative in their own unique ways. The copyright law isn’t meant to squash free expression; it’s meant to encourage creativity and learning. By the way, rights holders—even the Fab Four—don’t have a complete monopoly over their works. They can’t have prior approval over every use. In addition, in the United States, rights holders have limited “moral rights,” which means that the unauthorized modification of protected works can at times be perfectly fine. For example, a parody writer has a fair-use right to use enough of an original work—even in a disparaging way—to create something new. Your students are probably unaware that they’re creating derivative works—they’re just having harmless fun.

As for selling the DVDs, even if a small profit is made I don’t think it’ll be detrimental to the original work’s sales. If you’d like, you could label each DVD with a copyright notice: “This work is based on an original work that is protected by copyright. Further reproduction or distribution of this work may be an infringement of the copyright law.”

Is it okay to show videos of our tweens reading picture books on our website?

—Vicki Kouchnerkavich, youth services supervisor
Henika District Library, Wayland, MI

Reading picture books aloud (or any books for that matter) to a group of people in a place that’s open to the public is a public performance, one of the exclusive rights of the rights holder. Without copyright exceptions, like fair use, a librarian would have to seek the rights holder’s permission before reading out loud at storytime. This may seem a bit ridiculous, especially since storytime is a time-honored library tradition. The law “tolerates” uses such as storytime because the benefit of reading aloud to kids far outweighs the time and expense of seeking permission from a rights holder, obtaining a license, and paying a fee. Plus, picture books are recognized as works that are usually read orally. Of course, once we move storytelling online, we run into additional considerations, such as, is the story available to everybody and can it potentially be copied, saved, distributed, or modified?

Let’s start with the purpose of the use, the first factor of fair use. My guess is that by offering these stories online 24/7, your library hopes to increase the likelihood that its users will tune in to storytime whenever it’s convenient for them—which, of course, isn’t possible with a traditional storytime that’s offered only during library hours. Also, by having tweens read the stories, they’re contributing to your local reading culture. In fact, some library users may actually prefer tween readers rather than grown-up librarians. These are all good reasons for offering storytime online, and it’s hard to imagine that recorded readings by nonprofessional readers would interfere with the work’s market.

I’d recommend that you try to “contain” your online storytime. For instance, can the readings be password protected so they’re only available to library patrons? Are there any additional ways to protect the stories technologically, so they can’t be reproduced, modified, or distributed? Instead of having the videos available on your website, what about offering them as regular checkout items? I don’t think your use is unlawful, but it’s worthwhile to explore some ways to scale back or “contain” your use.