Do I need to get permission from copyright holder to show a movie for educational purposes

This would likely fall under one of the exceptions to the Copyright Act -which is for educational purposes. It would be considered a fair use. Also, it is unlikely that even if the copyright holders heard about the bus trip that they would object to this kind of use.

The studio would say "of course" and they'd likely be right, but in reality, your chances of being sued for watching a movie on a private or school chartered bus is pretty small.

There are certain educational exemptions for showing copyrighted works. One of those exemptions is display of copyrighted material for classroom purposes. Technically, that should be a movie used in the classroom as part of the instruction. I don't know what the subject of the film is, bt it probably doesn't really hit on this exemption, but this would be your argument if you were busted.

Your watching the film on the bus is not "fair use." Fair use is the ability to use someone elses work without a license provided the work is transformative. Satire, commentary, parody, etc. Its using someones work in a "different" way, not the way it was intended. If you are editing frames from the movie into a critique, that would be fair use. A public or pivate display ofthe entire, unaltered movie will never, ever be fair use.

As Oscar and Jefferson note, it's extraordinarily unlikely that the owner of the copyright in the movie (now MGM) will ever find out that you played the movie during your bus trip. So for all practical purposes, the risk of doing so is extremely small.

But is it copyright infringement? Difficult to say.

The movie re-creates a very interesting criminal trial that provides many teaching moments for paralegal students. Because teaching is a social good, copyright law specifically permits the classroom performance of movies in non-profit institutions. See 17 USC section 110(1). But I doubt Clark College is non-profit and I know that a bus is not a classroom. So this section probably does not directly apply.

If, however, Clark College is a non-profit then I think showing the movie may well fall within Section 110(1) -- by stretching the definition of "classroom" to include a bus -- and, in any event, would be a fair use under Section 107.

If Clark College is not a non-profit, then under our current law I don't think showing the movie on the bus would be a fair use of the movie. Even if showing the movie was for teaching purposes -- and you can show that it fits within the curriculum and that you actually did use the movie in some concrete way to further your understanding of criminal law or trial law (via handouts or a lecture afterwards perhaps), and you don't make anyone pay to watch the movie or share in the movie rental fee, I still think that showing the ENTIRE movie is beyond the scope of fair use. Showing snippets of the movie to generate teaching moments, sure. But not the whole movie.

I am the chairperson of an activities committee for a Homeowners Association for our gated community. I would like to show movies, at no expense, to members of our community. Do I need permission from copyright holders?