FAQ - Special Permissions

When you are granted a performance license, by law, the show you license must be performed, "as is." You have no right to make any changes at all unless you have obtained prior written permission from MTI to do so. Otherwise, any changes violate the authors’ rights under federal copyright law. Without prior permission from MTI, your actions may subject you to liability - not only to the authors, but also to us - for breaching the terms of your license agreement, which clearly forbids you to make any changes or deletions. 

Copyright law gives authors the exclusive right to control the reproduction of their work. When MTI grants a license for a live stage production of a show, that license does not include the right to record it because the authors retain the sole right to decide when or if their work is recorded in any way. We do offer Video Licenses for select MTI titles.

Even a recording made for classroom use, as a personal memento or as an archival school record violates the authors’ separate right to reproduce their work. In many cases, the authors have already granted such rights exclusively to film or television companies, in which case you would also be infringing upon the rights granted by the authors to a third party. 

If a group has first licensed and presented the full production, MTI can then grant permission for that group to take and use a continuous and linear segment section of their production for a competition. The full production must be done first and then the section used in the competition would need to be a continuous segment section from the show. We cannot grant permission for you to cut and paste or rearrange things or rewrite the authors’ work. There would be an additional royalty fee required for the competition performance and there could be no presentation of the competition selection presented publicly.