Performance and copy rights – making it cheap and simple
Copyright and performing rights can be an expensive minefield for the unwary drama group. At DramatisDei we aim to make it cheap and simple.
So here’s the situation. You have formed a drama group at school or at church or in a youth club and you want to perform some short dramas for a non-paying audience. You find a few books with likely-looking pieces in and buy them. That makes you happy. Then you read the page at the front of the book headed “performance license”. And now you don’t feel so happy.
The page may tell you that you can perform any of the dramas – if you purchase a license from the publisher. This may cost you a lot more than the price of the book. It may tell you that of course due to copyright you are not allowed to copy the scripts – so you will have to buy a copy of the book for each performer. If you are really unlucky it will tell you both things. And that’s just for one book – you are going to have to face up to the conditions in each of the books (or other sources) you use. And you worry that there may only be three or four usable scripts in each book. This could be a lot of expense for not much material.
All of that, of course, exists to reward the author of the scripts for his/her labours and to protect the fruits of his/her imagination (otherwise known as intellectual property). That is fair enough. But can’t we all get a fair deal?
The DramatisDei Deal
When you purchase a script from DramatisDei you don’t have to worry about this. When you pay for a script and download it you are buying an all-in-one package for that script, which we like to call the DramatisDei Deal. On the back page of the script is a lengthy description of what you can and can’t do with the script but here are the highlights.
- Perform it – lots of times! So long as you are a not-for-profit organisation or group and you are not charging anyone to see your performances then you can perform the script as often as you like for the next five years.
- Print the script for your team! You can print or copy a “performance set” of scripts – that means a copy for everyone involved.
- Video yourselves! You can make one video or audio recording for your group’s archives (and so you can all gather round the television with a pizza and have a good laugh at your mistakes).
- Put a clip on YouTube! You can even upload a short video clip of the performance (up to 10%) to a website – maybe Facebook or YouTube or your church/school website.
All that for the already-low price of the script. Is that a fairer deal?
If you want to charge for entry or want to make extra copies of that recording then you will need to contact us (sales@dramatisdei.com) because you may need to pay a small charge. In all cases you must make sure the author and this website are properly credited. You can’t make new versions of the script or pass it off as your own work – but then you wouldn’t feel comfortable doing that anyway. And you can’t pass the scripts or these rights on to another group. Suggest to them that they visit this site themselves!
That’s the deal and we can’t see how we could make it better!
Oh, one more thing. If you perform any of our material (or are just having fun reahearsing it!) we would love to hear from you. This is in no way a condition of purchase or performance, we would just love to know which of our material is being enjoyed where and by who, and to hear your stories of your exploits. Just go to the Your Experiences category (under Drama Scripts), click on “Tell us your experiences“ and tell us about it. We’ll be your friends for life.
