Visual media is increasingly playing an important role in meetings, conferences, and event planning. Speakers have long known that in order to effectively engage an audience, a presentation must stroke the senses.
Audiences are composed of people with a variety of learning styles. While an auditory learner may be hanging on your every word, a tactile learner may appreciate a more hands-on approach.
How many times have we walked away from an informative, if otherwise boring presentation with our most visceral memory being the lackluster presentation? The delivery of the message is just as important as the message itself.
Visual media, such as short scenes from movies and television shows, are increasing in popularity as they provide a simple and easy way to visually engage an audience. What better way to inject emotion and underscore or contrast your point than with an evocative scene?
Those in attendance at the 2014 ASAE Annual Meeting & Expo probably caught speaker Adam Grant's fantastic opening general session, which used a scene from Seinfeld to provide a humorous audiovisual underscore to his verbal message about personality styles. Both meeting planners and public speakers are leveraging the power or visual media in a variety of ways. But before hitting "play," it's important to consider copyright law.
Some people assume that only showing a few seconds of a movie scene is copyright exempt. The truth is that any video used within your meeting or presentation requires a public performance license. This is the case even if the movie has been rented, purchased, or borrowed via DVD or any other digital format. A license is required even if a portion of a film is shown during an educational event to a closed audience -- even if no admission fee is charged.
Sometimes industry groups will claim that their use of a copyrighted work falls under an educational, or "fair use," exemption. It must be noted that the fair use exemption has a four-factor test that can only be decided in a court of law. Educational exemptions only apply to full-time, nonprofit, accredited educational institutions (i.e. schools), and not to foundations, associations, or educational groups.
By showing movies without a license, you ultimately risk your organization's good name, and you may also have to pay significant fines for copyright infringement. According to the U.S. Copyright Act, Title 17 of the United States Code, fines for noncompliance start at $750 for each inadvertent infringement and go as high as $150,000 for egregious violations.
Members, staff, and outside facilitators may be unaware that the meeting coordinator can be held liable as a contributory infringer simply by allowing unlicensed exhibitions to occur. When it comes to infringement, it does not matter who pushes play when you turn a blind eye to unlicensed use.
The good news is that obtaining a public performance license is simple and affordable. Blanket licenses are available that provide coverage for various movies and producers. For a single license fee, you can access unlimited content for a single meeting or an entire year. Companies like the Motion Picture Licensing Corporation will work with meeting planners to help them acquire the appropriate licenses.
So, remember to be creative. Once a proper public performance license is obtained, you are free to explore a wide variety of programming ideas that are just a click away. With visual media as a delivery tool, you are sure to see a more engaged and entertained audience. You just have to make sure you have license to do so.
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Eileen Korte is the Licensing Manager for the U.S. office of the Motion Picture Licensing Corporation. For eight years, she has worked with facilities ranging from federal government agencies and multinational corporations to libraries and health care facilities to ensure comprehensive copyright compliance.
The MPLC is a world leader in motion picture copyright compliance, supporting legal access across five continents and more than twenty countries. It provides the Umbrella License® to more than 250,000 facilities in the U.S. and more than 450,000 worldwide.