The OP has everything to do with copyright law, he/she just didn’t know it. Re-broadcast of copyrighted material is illegal. This is nothing new. Maybe cable companies have a blanket license for access channels. I didn’t know that, but it doesn’t surprise me. However, unless the school purchases a mechanical license, distribution of recordings is certainly illegal. Doing so for money is even more of a problem, and negates what little educational fair-use argument you might have. I’m not saying that it isn’t done, but it is illegal.
I attended one meeting where a publisher told us music directors not to permit parents to videotape our concerts. The publisher said that this violated their copyright. Instead, it was suggested, that we hire a professional recording company to record our programs and that company could then sell the programs, provided they purchased the necessary licenses. As a band director, I haven’t gone that far. I have a problem with telling my parents they can’t record their own kids. It’s just not going to happen in my auditorium. My town is too small to interest any professional recording companies – there’s simply not enough money to be made.
An organization that I belong to routinely compiles a CD of distinguished performances by member bands. We are very careful to get the proper licenses for all the music on this disk.
I am trying to find an online cite for this information, but I’m not having much luck. I have a brochure from Alfred Publishing that talks about copyright, fair use, and “respect”. I haven’t had time to find out if the brochure is online.
As long as parents videotape the concerts for their own use and don’t broadcast or charge admission, I can’t see how the publisher has a copyright claim. Thanks to Sony v. Universal Studios, SCOTUS has held that videotaping for personal use is perfectly legal, provided that no money changes hands to view the recording and it isn’t rebroadcast.
What if you take the children out of the equation? Isn’t there a copyright issue if I take my videocamera to a U2 concert? It seems that nearly every professional concert I’ve been to, there is some sort of announcement that recording the concert is against the rules.
As Doreen pointed out, there is a difference between a professional concert and a student band performance. If you’ll look at a concert ticket, there is boilerplate that is a contract. That contract stipulates that, if you see the concert, you agree not to record it. U2 (and other professional performing arts organizations) make their money from recording and live performances. Amateur (and student) groups don’t. If U2 wanted to do so, they could allow concertgoers to record shows. But bootlegging shows tends to cut into revenue by diluting the potential audience; after all, who’s going to pay almost $100 to see a show when they can see a recording of what is probably an identical show for free? Contrast that with an amateur show with a very limited run; parents, grandparents and others who couldn’t make it to the show can’t see it at all, because it’s never going to be performed under the same circumstances.
Having thought about it, I still don’t think a music publisher has a copyright over parents recording their kids’ concerts for personal, non-commercial use. It may be a contractual issue, though; in exchange for the performance rights to a particular piece of music, you agree not to allow parents to videotape or record the concert, but that’s a contractual issue you agree to, enforced through applicable contract law in your state, not copyright law. IANAL, but I have studied communications law (including copyright) rather extensively.