The Motion Picture Licensing Corporate recently announced that it has partnered with the California Society of Association Executives and the Georgia SAE to offer reduced-rate licenses for showing motion pictures and other audiovisual content in a copyright-compliant manner. The Michigan SAE formed a similar partnership with MPLC in January 2016.
The license, known as an Umbrella License, provides associations the rights to show a wide array of movies and other audiovisual programs for entertainment or educational purposes from more than 1,000 Hollywood studios, TV, and other sources.
As MPLC points out, “The U.S. Copyright Act, Title 17 of the United States Code, determines that copyrighted motion pictures and other programs that are legally available for personal, private use (such as DVDs, downloads, or available via streaming) need a public performance license when exhibited in public. Showing movies during meetings, conference sessions, or other special events requires a public performance license without regard to whether an admission fee is charged or to whether the exhibitor is a for-profit or not-for-profit organization.”
Related: Copyright Law: The License You Didn’t Know You Needed
“We are excited to provide GSAE members with this new benefit,” says Wendy Kavanagh, CAE, GSAE president. “The Umbrella License allows members to enhance meetings with audiovisual programming. The new relationship with MPLC makes accessing movies and short scenes more affordable than ever before, and takes the specter of copyright infringement out of the equation.”
Adds Jim Anderson, CAE, president and CEO of CalSAE, “We appreciate the agreement with MPLC and the opportunity to educate our members about the importance of copyright awareness.”
