Recently Asked Questions

I received a request from a former student of [a local high school] in which her name appears on a yearbook page citing student activities. As the page is part of a whole PDF of the entire yearbook, "removing her name" would require taking down the entire yearbook.

If the library that scanned and uploaded the yearbook to the internet received permission from the high school to do so (the yearbook is tagged as In Copyright) does the student have a reasonable request?

I've had an interesting question posed to me by two Social Studies teachers and... I have a feeling this may be a more pervasive issue.

A teacher checked out a :50 video (DVD) from the school library he wants to show to his class. Typically, while the students are watching the video, they will answer/respond to a worksheet the teacher has provided to them. How does the teacher show this video to his Remote-Only students at home?

The elementary is planning a virtual Halloween parade this year. The students will parade through the building in costume. As they pass through the entrance hallway, there will be a video camera live-streaming the parade via zoom (to families watching from home). The parade committee would like to play a purchased CD of spooky music in the background of the video.

Does this violate the music copyright?

Help!  We just got a very scary "cease and desist" notice from a company claiming to own the copyrights to some videos that were posted on our web site and used internally.  They want $2,000 to "settle" a copyright claim, and they say we have 10 days to reply or they will sue!  This notice is sitting in my in-box like a ticking time bomb, please let me know what we should do. [1]

[1] In the interest of transparency, please know that this question is an amalgam of several we've received, and not attributable to any one institution.

New state guidelines list face shields as acceptable face coverings:
https://regs.health.ny.gov/volume-1a-title-10/content/section-66-32-face-coverings [NOTE: This link was confirmed as no longer active and removed on 02/25/2022 as part of the routine review of "Ask the Lawyer" materials.]
However, people often spend quite a bit of time in the library, especially using our computers. We would like to require that they wear actual cloth (or paper surgical) face masks. Are we permitted to make our own safety rules? It seems to me, that just as we can prevent roller skating in the library, we should be able to set other safety rules for the sake of staff and patrons.
Thank you.