Copyrighted material being used in preschools?

[zebraZ]

The preschool I help out at received a letter from the mplc , scaring (well, I think it's scare-mongering) us into thinking that we "need" an umbrella license to show dvds or videos of copyrighted films at the preschool, including for "educational" purposes (their quote, not mine). And wouldn't we like to sign up in less than 2 week's time for their specially reduced introductory offer?

The preschool is Ofsted inspected, majority funded by LEA & fundraising (as it's a charity), and offers only sessional "care", to children age 2+.

Intellectualproperty.gov.uk says that a special (non-domestic license) isn't required in an "educational establishment" to show a copyrighted film, but even the County council isn't sure if my preschool is "educational" or more in the category of "childcare". County Council is to get back to me about whether they think we need a license. This is so annoying, we only play dvds to the children about 2x/term.

Preschool are equally concerned that maybe we aren't allowed to use our educational CDRoms without a special "non-domestic-use" license. Also, are we ok to play copyrighted music to the children?

I am thinking it might be better to approach the film copyright holders directly and ask for written permission, but maybe they would just ignore us.

You can tell I'm mean and feisty about this. Has anyone helpful knowledge or experience?

sorry that was so long...

sounds like a load of crap to me. All the nurseries my kids have ever attended have had videos played at them!

I imagine that if the nursery is more "childcare" like a creche or holiday club = than you would think the video was on for entertainment purposes, fair enough. But what if it's only used for educational reasons, and then only very occasional....

Early Learning dept. of the LEA phoned me back, said they haven't a clue, and asked me to phone the general LEA line.... who had referred me to the early learning dept. in the first place. Blech.

Not quite the same thing - but we need a licence for the Sunday School/Brownies/Guides etc at church to be able to show DVD's etc without a license either.

Don't know about the MPLC ones, but the CCL (church music ones) are too expensive - and we come under quite a 'high' caterogory.

Just an update, havng looked into it, can't see any point in the mplc license. Not for us. They don't cover Hit Entertainment (so, not Thomas the TE or Bob the Builder and those are the only 2 videos we show). Governor.net was a good resource for finding the text of the 1996 Education Act for England and Wales, and defensibly I think I can interpret that our is an "educational establishment" from that so no copyright violation if our preschool shows videos for educational purposes.

Am still considering whether to write letters of complaint to the LEA (& anybody else) about this matter.... LEA never returned my last phone call & don't think they would have a clue, anyway. Charities and playgroups can ill-afford £60/year or so just to show 1 educational video/term.