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Guidelines For Educational Uses of Music from Music Publshers' Association

What is allowed:

1. Making of a copy of a performable unit (movement, aria) for personal or nonprofit use.
2. Making multiple copies for classroom use of a small amount of any performable unit.
3. Making emergency copies to replace purchased copies, which for any reason are not available for imminent performance, provided that the purchaed copies are substituted later.
4. Allowing students to use 30-second clips of music for student-produced classroom multimedia projects. These projects may be exhibited at open house or at a professional conference for up to two years after creation.

What is not allowed:

1. Playing tape, compact disc, or radio music on a cable channel owned by the district without permission or licensing. Because of changes in the law in 1998, permission might be easier to obtain for the retransmission of radio music in limited instances.
2. Using popular music in satellite or cabe distance education programming without licensing or permission

What works

1. Encourage students to use royalty-free music on compact discs as much as possible, but don't discourage them from using popular music if the use is appropriate for in-class presentation and will be erased after completion.
2. Kindergarten through sixth grade students are not held to the 30-second clip of music stipulations for multimedia presentations according to the Educational Fair Use Multimedia Guidelines. They may use more as needed.
3. Music uses that are appropriate for student project content and educational outcomes are generally fair use.
4. If a student is considering a commercial venue for a project, then the student should:
• use original music
• use copyright-free music,
• or, gain permissions/licensing for the work at the time of creation.

Caution

1. The major music associations have investigators in large cities that check music uses at schools and colleges, as well as at restaurants and other commercial establishments.
2. BMI searches the internet for unauthorized uses of music.
3. "Watermarking" and other devices can detect internet music copying.

The above taken from "commonsense copyright : a guide for educators and librarians by R.S. Talab. 2nd edition. p.42-43.