Public Performance Rights
Various campus offices, student groups, etc., contact us to ask if they are permitted to show media items from our collection to groups. The short answer is that only items for which we have been granted public performance rights can be shown to groups other than for face-to-face instruction as part of the regular institutional curriculum.
We have begun a project of updating the catalog with information about what rights we do have. When viewing a record in the online catalog, look for the "Terms of Use" field near the call number.
- If the Terms of Use field shows "Personal viewing or face-to-face teaching exemption only," we do not have any public performance rights for that item. To show this item to a group, you would need to obtain a license for each performance. The largest licensing company for is Swank Motion Pictures (1-800-876-5577).
- If the Terms of Use field shows just "Public Performance Rights," this can be shown to groups, so long as no admission is charged. If there is anything more after "Public Performance Rights," it will specify further restrictions.
- If there is no Terms of Use field displayed, and the Location shows " Undergraduate Media Collection", please email ipmacquisitions@library.uiuc.edu to ask for a rights search. Please include the title and complete call number from the catalog record.
- If the Location is somewhere other than "Undergraduate Media Collection," please contact the staff of the holding library for information.
To search for items in our collection which have public performance rights indicated in the catalog:
- Go to the Online Library Catalog
- Click on Advanced Search.
- Click on the More Limits button (lower right corner of screen).
- Select Undergraduate Media Collection under the Location heading.
- Click Set Limits. Red bold text will appear on the screen stating: “Search Limits are in effect!”
- In the Search for box, type “public performance rights” without the quotation marks .
- Click on the All of These menu and choose “these words as a phrase”
- From the Search by menu, choose “MFHD Search”
- Click the Search button to view the results of your search. To view the full record for an item, click on the title.
No matter what rights we hold, media items from the library's collection may not be used in any setting in which admission is charged or for any commercial purposes. Public performance rights differ significantly from digital rights, so please note that items for which the library has public performance rights may not include the ability to reformat or distribute electronically. Duplication is also prohibited.
