[Wylug-discuss] copyright laws and media storage.playback in schools

[Paul Brook]

On Tuesday 25 September 2007, Tariq Fayaz wrote:
> We've been asked to implement on of our linux streaming media servers
> into a school however they are worried about copyright law. Just
> wondered if anyone has experience of the legal side of this or can
> advise?
>
> As far as I know if you own a legal DVD or VHS you are permitted to
> duplicate and store this but are you allowed to play it back on more
> than one device at once? many questions like this are cropping up as I
> simply do not know the answers!

The short answer is that you need to ask an lawer, and I doubt anyone on this 
list is qualified to give an authorative reply.

IIRC most DVDs are for private use only, and "public" showings are explicitly 
prohibited. Use in a school probably falls foul of this, thought the school 
may have some agreement for this (like radio stations do for playing music).

In the US I'm fairly sure any sort of unencrypted streaming would violate the 
DMCA, thankfully we don't have an equivalent law.

Paul

P.S. Please don't hijack existing threads by replying to unrelated emails. 
Start a new one.