Page:The librarian's copyright companion, by James S. Heller, Paul Hellyer, Benjamin J. Keele, 2012.djvu/45

Chapter Two. Restrictions on Use able to e-books, because the use of e-books is almost always controlled by license agreements. Just because your library purchases an authorized copy of an e-book doesn't mean you're free to share it with your patrons; you must look to your license agreement.

Publicly displaying or performing copyrighted material without permission may infringe copyright. The owner's "public performance" right applies to literary, musical, dramatic, choreographic, pantomimes, motion pictures, and other audiovisual works. The owner's "public display" right applies to those same works, and also to graphic and sculptural works.

The performance right is a bit different from a display right, especially with regard to audiovisual works, such as film. The performance of an audiovisual work means showing the images in sequence. The display of an audiovisual work involves showing individual images non-sequentially. Showing the Marx Brothers' film Duck Soup would be a performance, while showing selected images of Groucho as Rufus T. Firefly, the President of Freedonia, would be a display.

Not all performances or displays are protected by copyright, but only those that are "public." Under the Copyright Act,

To perform or display a work "publicly" means—

(1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of family and its social acquaintances is gathered; or

(2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the work to a place specified by clause (1) or to the public by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public are capable of