William Fisher, CopyrightX: Lecture 4.2, Welfare Theory: The Incentive Theory of Copyright

Toward the end of his otherwise excellent example involving DVD pricing, around timestamp 29:20 in Lecture 4.2 (below), Prof. Fisher suggests that it is unlawful for a teacher to play a DVD for students. It’s accurate that playing a DVD in the classroom is a public performance. However, most classroom performances are shielded from copyright liability due to Section 110(1) of the U.S. Copyright Act. Section 110(1) gives teachers and students the right to perform and display copyrighted works during face-to-face teaching activities at nonprofit educational institutions. We’ll talk about this again in Week 7.

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