Quote:
Originally Posted by orion
If you want to be legal, you need to get permission even for a stream outside of home. Talk to your club's advisor.
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Technically orion's right that, in the US, showing a stream probably constitutes a "public performance" under
17 USC 101. "Fair use" (see
17 USC 107) might play some role here because the showing takes place in an educational institution, though educational use by itself is not usually sufficient to make a "fair use" claim.* Looking at, for instance,
Funimation's copyright notice, it limits the use of the materials on its site to "personal, non-commercial" use. Only the school's attorney can give an opinion on whether streaming an episode of
Fruits Basket in a school setting would be considered "personal" (it clearly qualifies as "non-commercial").
In my mind, playing a DVD bought at a video store in a classroom is as likely to constitute an unlicensed use as streaming would. Nearly all DVDs show a notice at the beginning that limits their license to use in homes. My bet is some of the school's teachers and staff have shown DVDs in classes and never considered the copyright issues involved.
In any event, showing DVDs or streams is certainly more defensible than showing fansubs which are clearly illegal.
IANAL, but I know a bit about copyright law.
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*If educational use alone provided a "fair use"defense, schools could buy one copy of a textbook, photocopy the contents, and distribute the copies to the students in lieu of buying the books themselves.