4 Messages

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100 Points

Wednesday, March 10th, 2021

really need help ASAP!

Good afternoon!

I work at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC. (the world's only liberal arts college serving deaf/hard of hearing students)
Our student organization, Black Student Union, would like to host a private screening showing American Skin and have a discussion afterwards. This will be done via zoom using amazon prime. Do need permission from Vertical Entertainment or Amazon Prime?

thanks so much!

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10.7K Messages

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226.1K Points

5 years ago

Well, this forum is not quite the right place to inquire about a thing like that. The chain of authority is an important thing to be considered in regards to sharing/licensing of copyrighted material, so it is best to direct inquiries at a relevant distributor unless no distributor has any involvement in the licensing scenario. Included in https://www.primevideo.com/help?nodeId=202095490&view-type=content-only is a provision concerning display/distribution:

General Restrictions. You may not (i) transfer, copy or display the Digital Content, except as permitted in this Agreement; (ii) sell, rent, lease, distribute, or broadcast any right to the Digital Content; (iii) remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Digital Content; (iv) attempt to disable, bypass, modify, defeat, or otherwise circumvent any digital rights management or other content protection system used as part of the Service; or (v) use the Service or Digital Content for any commercial or illegal purpose.

The Amazon company may not appreciate its streaming services being used relay price-bearing content in picture/sound to more than a specific number of distinct viewing devices at a time. For any given copyrighted work, often it is preferred that compensation would be received on a per-screen basis, or in cases of a large audience viewing the same screen, on a per-audience-member basis (like ticket revenue at the cinema). Does this make sense? Anyway, the idea is to contact the streaming services department of the Amazon company to work out a deal that ensures a screening host's ability to display a movie to a large audience, or otherwise directly obtain both a copy of the movie and the permission to distribute it in a very limited capacity, from the copyright holder.

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100 Points

@jeorj_euler  

thank you so much for response!

Champion

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15.7K Messages

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344.2K Points

5 years ago

It may not work technically speaking due to copyright protection.

Perhaps this is of help:

https://learninginnovation.duke.edu/blog/2020/09/showing-videos-in-your-online-class/

4 Messages

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100 Points

helpful information thanks!

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226.1K Points

5 years ago

I understand the university more than likely has its own rules concerning the obedience of its faculty, staff and students (and student organizations) to the law of the land, but I should supply my personal opinion on matters of copyright infringement, I say that I would only really be concerned about the nuanced area of criminal liability associated with it, since the civil liability really only amounts to paying due compensation to a victim, provided that nor harm to vanity was committed. In other words, sometimes, it is way better to beg for forgiveness (and pay penance for a time) than ask for permission, but it should be noted that indeed the law requires permission to be asked. I wouldn't want to see a member of a student organization get into trouble with the organization, or the organization get into trouble with the university, or anybody get into trouble with the copyright holder, or worse yet, the law.

4 Messages

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100 Points

@jeorj_euler 

totally agree-it was just very frustrating to get a response from the distributor, Vertical Entertainment to get permission. I will advise the student organization to postpone this plan until permission is granted.

2 Messages

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70 Points

5 years ago

Hello, I'm a librarian at Northern Vermont University tasked with getting permission to screen American Skin virtually at NVU. What is my next step? Thank you.

Lisa M. Kent

Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation originally titled Getting permission to virtually screen a movie at Northern Vermont University

Employee

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40.7K Points

Hi @lisamoniquekent 

We are not able to grant permission to use photos or videos from our website or mobile app, including trailers. Video clips and images are licensed to us only for use on IMDb and we are not permitted to sublicense them onwards.

If you are determined to try to obtain the rights, you should track down the original copyright holders to ask them for their permission. IMDb cannot assist you with that.

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226.1K Points

Hi, Lisa M. Kent (at Northern Vermont University). You may be interested to know that one Mary Keane (at Gallaudet University) also inquired about acquiring a license to screen American Skin almost a week before you did: /conversations/i-need-to-know/really-need-help-asap/604924a47824794abde8be9c.