Section 110(1) of the Copyright Act

Section 110 of the Copyright Act provides, in part, that the following activity does not constitute copyright infringement:

   performance or display of a work by instructors or pupils in the    course of face-to-face teaching activities of a nonprofit educational    institution, in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction,    unless, in the case of a motion picture or other audiovisual work,    the performance, or the display of individual images, is given by    means of a copy that was not lawfully made under this title, and that    the person responsible for the performance knew or had reason to    believe was not lawfully made;

Does this mean that a teacher may display, in such a setting, the text of an unauthorized copy of a work which he or she knows to be unauthorized without incurring liability for copyright infringment?

For example, may a teacher display in this classroom setting as part of a course on modern art unauthorized photographs that he/she knows to be unauthorized of copyright protected paintings and not incur liability? If so, why does the statute appear to offer greater protection for audiovisual works than for works in other media?

Does the statute protect a teacher who makes a copy of a film, broadcast on television, for personal use and then some years after the copying displays the film as part of a course in a classroom setting?          

Bernard Gerdelman
<attorney[_at_]i1.net> Received on Thu Nov 19 1998 - 23:26:21 GMT