Fair Use for Presentations?

Fubar asks: "The company I work for provides training 'workshops' to various folks in the finance industry. The folks who give the presentations during the workshops are considering adding short clips from various movies to help illustrate their points. In my searching, I have found evidence that basically seems to suggest the practice COULD be either a) fine or b) illegal. Not exactly the black & white answer I was hoping to find."

Comments

OK, here's my fair use example

[$RANDOMLUSER]

OK, this is supposed to be "insightful", not "funny". If you don't know "Fantasia", don't bother.

Back in the day, I was teaching Java at the local community college. Every semester, I'd bring in "Fantasia" and show the Mickey Mouse as Sorcerer's Apprentice bit. Mickey would watch the sorcerer, who'd go off to bed, then Mickey would start the broomsticks filling the well, (dum da dadada dum da) things would get out of hand, and the broomsticks would split and split and split. Next thing you know, Mickey's afloat on the sorcerer's book, frantically turning pages, trying to figure out how to make it stop.

I'd pause the tape then, and after a long time starting at Mickey floating atop the book, I'd say:

"NOW he checks the docs."

Re:OK, here's my fair use example

[$RANDOMLUSER]

> Dude, this pot roast joke had better be good, I was all set to moderate three posts in this thread, but I gotta hear it.

Damn, two of my best stories blown on one thread, no funny voices or inflections, just ASCII, but, OK, since you ask so nice, and I haven't been hammered by the "overrated" mod trolls yet:

There's a newlywed couple; he's watching her make dinner, and he asks:
"Why do you cut the end off the pot roast like that?"
And she says:
"I've always done it that way, it has to be done that way, my mother taught me to do it that way".
And he says:
"Well, you don't have to cut the end of the pot roast off like that".
And she says:
"I've always done it that way, it has to be done that way, my mother taught me to do it that way".

So they get into (their first) huge fight.

She calls her mom in tears and asks:
"Mom, why did you teach me to cut off the end of the pot roast like that?"
And her mom says
"I've always done it that way, it has to be done that way, my mother taught me to do it that way".
And she says:
"Well, Jeff says you don't have to do it that way."
And her mom says:
"I've always done it that way, it has to be done that way, my mother taught me to do it that way".

Now, totally confused, the girl calls her gran, and asks:
"Gran, why did you teach my mom, and she taught me, to cut off the end of the pot roast like that?"
Her gran thinks for a minute and says:
"I don't have a pan that big".

Ba Dum Cha!

Just to spoil the joke by explaining it:

For those of you just joining us, the point would be something along the lines of:
"The workarounds of one generation become the religious dictums to the next generation."

Here's an article to look at

[kaufmanmoore]

look at this article from the intellectual property and technology forum at BC's law school, a few pages down it provides a hypothetical about using a film clip in a training presentation and how it couple be considered fair use. link