Current Events > A school played 'The Lion King' at a fundraising event. Now it has to pay

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/02/04/us/lion-king-elementary-school-250-trnd/index.html

When an elementary school in Berkeley, California, hosted a "parent's night out" fundraiser, they didn't think playing the 2019 remake of "The Lion King" would do anything besides keep the kids happy.
That was until Emerson Elementary School received an email from a licensing company Thursday -- more than two months after the event -- saying they had to pay $250 for illegally screening the movie.
"One of the dads bought the movie at Best Buy," PTA president David Rose told CNN. "He owned it. We literally had no idea we were breaking any rules."

While the school doesn't know how exactly the company discovered the movie was played, Rose said the school's PTA will "somewhat begrudgingly" cover the cost of the screening.

An email sent to the school by Movie Licensing USA informed Emerson faculty that the company had "received an alert" that "The Lion King" was screened during an event on November 15. Movie Licensing USA manages licensing for Disney and other major studios.
And since the school does not have a license with the company, it's been asked to pay $250 for the screening -- and $250 per showing of the movie at any future events at the school.
"Any time a movie is shown outside of the home, legal permission is needed to show it, as it is considered a Public Performance," read the email, which was obtained by CNN.
"Any time movies are shown without the proper license, copyright law is violated and the entity showing the movie can be fined by the studios. If a movie is shown for any entertainment reason -- even in the classroom, it is required by law that the school obtains a Public Performance license."

Lol Disney

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fair, next

Remember those FBI warnings at the start of movies?

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They literally put a warning about this at the beginning of movies. I do wonder who ratted them out though. My guess? Some parent made a facebook post or tweet talking about it and someone, whose job it is to scrape the Internet for these mentions, found that and reported it.

lol Disney

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This is fucking stupid. Everybody cancel Disney+.

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Fuck off Disney

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the best part about this kind of ruthless and inhuman capitalistic garbage is that were way too deep into it to ever see change

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butthole666 posted...

the best part about this kind of ruthless and inhuman capitalistic garbage is that were way too deep into it to ever see change

What does that even mean? Are you saying that you cant bring yourself to stop giving Disney your money, by not watching their movies?

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Foppe posted...

Remember those FBI warnings at the start of movies?

Reis posted...

fair, next

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It's not Disney. Look at the company's "business objective"

<I>Movie Licensing USA
Movie Licensing USA provides public performance licensing to legally bring the magic of movies to public libraries and K-12 schools across the U.S. Our licensing options satisfy federal copyright requirements to allow you to show movies from the worlds best studios, anywhere inside of your buildings.</I>

So basically they're fining these people as a way of justifying their own stupid existence.

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Disney is one of the most evil & ruthless companies out there. I'm not surprised at all. Fuck Disney.

I guess my kindergarten teacher is about to get a bill for showing us Bambi in 1991

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Awesome, let's start having mass screenings of Disney movies to boycott!

...Wait a second...

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I wonder who the cuck that rattled was

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Middle hope posted...

I wonder who the cuck that rattled was

Cuck doesnt mean what you think it means.

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pfh1001 posted...

Disney is one of the most evil & ruthless companies out there. I'm not surprised at all. Fuck Disney.

@pfh1001 read the post above yours.

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ledbowman posted...

I guess my kindergarten teacher is about to get a bill for showing us Bambi in 1991

Were they raising and made money?


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PrettyBoyFloyd posted...

Were they raising and made money?

It says

"Any time a movie is shown outside of the home, legal permission is needed to show it, as it is considered a Public Performance," read the email, which was obtained by CNN.
"Any time movies are shown without the proper license, copyright law is violated and the entity showing the movie can be fined by the studios. If a movie is shown for any entertainment reason -- even in the classroom, it is required by law that the school obtains a Public Performance license."

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Tell them to fuck off. How much are they going to escalate over 250?

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They can't just deny it happened?

Imagine if you saw a movie at a friend's house and afterwards they got a fine lol.

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Fair enough. Next.

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LightningAce11 posted...

Tell them to fuck off. How much are they going to escalate over 250?

Good question.

--Zero- posted...

They can't just deny it happened?

They could do this in addition to telling them to fuck off.

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if they didn't make money off of it, i think this is dumb

IP laws need to be fucking completely reworked. Society as a whole has gotten fucked in the head though. Teachers used to play dubbed VHS tapes of movies during class....nobody every reported anyone for that back in the 90s. But nowadays people are different...people are falling in love too much government rules and reporting people and just fucking other people over. Sad shit.

Disney was never good as a group of people.

Back in grade school they used to play Disney movies all the time on lazy Friday afternoons LMAO

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Disney is canceled.

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Godnorgosh posted...

They manage Disney's licensing as well as that of other companies. Disney justifies their existence. This does not absolve Disney of anything, and they have a history of ruthlessness as it is.

Disney had nothing to do with this case, except that they made the movie.

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The PTA should be happy that 250 dollars didn't have an extra three+ zeroes attached to it instead of whining about something that is entirely their fault for being stupid.
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I think you should be able to show a movie in a classroom as part of a lesson or just to reward the kids. That should be protected.

But an advertised exhibition open to the public is something which requires the consent of the property holders. That's not Disney being an evil corporation. That's how exhibition laws function. That's why there's a cover charge if you local bar shows a PPV event. That's why theaters which show old movies show certain movies and not others.

Disney is pretty damn draconian with their IPs, but you can't realistically expect them to give carte blanche to anyone who shows a film of theirs for a good cause. You really think a fundraiser or a blood drive is going to supersede copyright laws? Let's show Avengers: Endgame and the original Star Wars trilogy for a $5 donation.

You can expect to put $250 into organizing a fundraiser. For the amount of money it would take to get an authorized exhibition of The Lion King, you'd never earn your money back from any attendance level. This is a pretty simple case of, "ask forgiveness, not permission."

I'm sorry, but the bad guy is within their rights this time.

Crono99 posted...

Technically legal but actually antisocial behavior.

It's legal because corporate america made it legal. Otherwise it's fubar altogether.

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Oh I see, they charged an admission for the movie. If it was a free event there would be no problem. I guess you can have a bake sale and screen the movie for free and it'd be alright. Or just charge for concessions and screen the movie for free.

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When I was a kid I remember in 3rd grade we watched Cinderella. I wonder if the teacher had permission or not. But this was in like 1990

Not a good look for Disney, here.

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Lorenzo_2003 posted...

What does that even mean? Are you saying that you cant bring yourself to stop giving Disney your money, by not watching their movies?

not sure how you could possibly have gotten that from reading that post

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ZEROWOLF posted...

Oh I see, they charged an admission for the movie. If it was a free event there would be no problem. I guess you can have a bake sale and screen the movie for free and it'd be alright. Or just charge for concessions and screen the movie for free.

No. It says

"Any time a movie is shown outside of the home, legal permission is needed to show it, as it is considered a Public Performance," read the email, which was obtained by CNN.
"Any time movies are shown without the proper license, copyright law is violated and the entity showing the movie can be fined by the studios. If a movie is shown for any entertainment reason -- even in the classroom, it is required by law that the school obtains a Public Performance license."

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--Zero- posted...

They can't just deny it happened?

Imagine if you saw a movie at a friend's house and afterwards they got a fine lol.

Your friend's house isn't a public venue

And looking past the Disney aspect of this, the whole reason licensing exists is because it's one of the ways creators make money. You're also supposed to pay to play music.

What will most likely happen here is Disney will recognize the bad press and try to compensate them in some way, but it will still leave a sour taste

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Way back in the day we'd sometimes have a "fun afternoon" on a Friday in elementary school and watch a movie, sometimes Disney stuff. >_> My school owes a lot of back pay. >_>

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Godnorgosh posted...

Disney uses the company that fined the school. Unless they take action against this decision or to compensate the school, which they have the ability to do, they are complicit.

No, the company uses the current copyright law to fine the school and will send the money to Disney later, Disney doesnt know everything this third party does.

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There are literal warnings at the beginning of VHS, DVDs, and Blu-Ray that literally say FBI warning, they are not joking.

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My grade school would have racked up some hefty fines.

Godnorgosh posted...

Disney uses the company to manage their licensing, as explicitly stated in the article. Disney can choose to compensate the school or take some other action against the fine. Otherwise, they are condoning what their licensing company did.

But Disney got no idea that the third party company used the law against the school.
You make it sound like they would bow in front of the Throne of Mouse, informing the Mouse that they found out that a school broke the copyright law and begging the Mouse for permission to send out a demand for money, to which the Mouse would laugh evily and demand them to charge some extra.

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