Showing a film (e.g. playing a video or DVD) outside your immediate family and private home is, in copyright terms, a performance in public. This requires the permission of the copyright owners. Examples of this sort of use include:
- film societies
- fundraising film nights
- on bus or coaches
- entertaining the kids at school or in a library on a rainy day.
In industry terms this is called a “non-theatrical exhibition”, and there are two companies from which can rent you a copy of a film, which includes a copyright clearance to perform it in public: Roadshow Film Distributors, Tel 02 9552 8600; and Amalgamated Movies, Tel 07 4787 1086 (Eastern states) or 08 9727 1950 (SA, WA, NT). The two companies have different catalogues of films, so if one company doesn’t have the movie you want, then the other may.