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School Fined For Reenacting “The Lion King” Without Required License

By Modupeoluwa Adekanye
05 February 2020   |   10:02 am
There are different activities done by parents to make their children happy, this was the plan of the parents in an elementary school in Berkeley, California who hosted a "parent's night out" fundraiser, they didn't think playing the 2019 remake of "The Lion King" would do anything besides keep the kids happy. More than two…

School Fined By Movie Licensing USA For Reenacting “The Lion King” Without Required License Image Vox

There are different activities done by parents to make their children happy, this was the plan of the parents in an elementary school in Berkeley, California who hosted a “parent’s night out” fundraiser, they didn’t think playing the 2019 remake of “The Lion King” would do anything besides keep the kids happy.

More than two months after the event, Emerson Elementary School received an email from a licensing company, Movie Licensing USA, on Thursday saying they had to pay $250 for illegally screening the film according to a report by CNN.

In the email received, it reads:

Any time movies are shown without the proper license, copyright law is violated and the entity showing the movie can be fined by the studios. If a movie is shown for any entertainment reason, even in the classroom, it is required by law that the school obtains a Public Performance license.

The PTA president David Rose, while speaking about the event said:

One of the dads bought the movie at Best Buy. He owned it. We literally had no idea we were breaking any rules.

Berkeley City Councilmember Lori Droste, who is also a parent at Emerson Elementary, believes Disney is being unfair, he says:

There was an initiative passed in 1979 called Proposition 13 which casts the property tax on all land, and so Disney’s property tax rates are at 1978 values which translates into millions upon millions of dollars a year that Disney is not paying. Because of that, our schools are now extremely underfunded. We went from the ’70s being among the top education systems in the US to one of the lowest.

While the school doesn’t know how exactly the company discovered the film was played, Rose said the school’s PTA will have to cover the cost of the screening.

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