The holiday season is upon us and with that comes greater opportunities for work related events. Certainly, the traditional holiday party comes to mind, but for many companies, it can be a time of team building and preparing for the new year. For others, there is a push to meet year-end goals. Regardless, there are great opportunities for breaking from the norm.
How does this affect copyright? It’s simple. Perhaps you decide to live-stream a marketing event, and your location has popular holiday music playing that you are now streaming over the internet. Maybe inclement weather requires streaming a webinar rather than an in-person meeting and includes a scene from a movie that enhances your topic. Whether your regularly stream or it’s seasonal for you, knowing copyright rules regarding streaming both audio and visual media is extremely important.
Streaming Doesn’t Change the Underlying Rules Regarding Copyright
Streaming technology and accessing media is quite convenient. It serves both entertaining and educational purposes and is used more and more both personally and commercially. The eases of access, however, has not changed the underlying rules regarding copyright and public performances of such works.
A recent example of the perils of following streaming rules can be found in a recent example involving Peloton. Since starting, the fitness bike company has centered its platform around the customer’s experience and, using popular music has helped create the in-demand classes we’ve all heard about. As many know by now, they ran into problems with copyright infringement by not properly licensing the artists’ content for streaming.
The details, in this case, should be noted by other companies and individuals for audio content streaming as well as visual content. Music streaming is complicated and differs a bit from other visual media. And while your audience may only be several boardrooms across the country or a few consumers interested in a free webinar promoting a product, the rules still apply and it’s best to research and ask the proper questions before starting to stream any content. Itis best practice to ensure your current license covers streaming, as some, but not all, do. When you are working hard to increase attendance and engagement, that is not the time to be hindered because you didn’t comply with copyright law.
It’s a great time to review current practices and decide what is needed as you launch into a new year and set yourself and your company up for great success in 2020.
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