Fighting Copyright Ignorance with Comic Books
For those of you who produce podcasts, video blogs, documentaries or any
other type of creative work, stop everything you're doing right now and
go read a comic book.
The Center for the Study of the Public Domain, in an effort to educate
content producers about the realities of copyright, have published an
amazing comic book called "Tales from the Public Domain: Bound by Law?"
(http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/) The comic book, available in
various digital formats as well as on paper, is an entertaining, highly
informative about the often-confusing world of copyright law.
The book follows the story of a documentary maker putting together a
film about life in New York City. ("Trapped by a STRUGGLE she didn't
understand.... By day a FILM MAKER... By night she fought for FAIR
USE!") As she's gone around and captured scenes for her film, she's also
picked up incidental uses of other people's work - a saxophonist playing
a song, a sign in the background with a company logo, public TV screens
showing images of Bart Simpson. These scenes are a reality of modern
life, yet they're a nightmare for documentary producers. As the comic
book notes, one producer was forced to remove footage that featured
someone whose mobile phone ringtone happened to be the theme to the
movie Rocky because they couldn't afford to pay the song's publisher
$10,000 for including it. In other cases, important works like the civil
rights documentary Eyes on the Prize get locked away for years because
the producers couldn't afford to pay for the clearance rights of
incidental music. (Thankfully, Eyes on the Prize will finally air again
on PBS this fall, after years of fundraising to pay for clearance fees.)
The question is, who's in the right? When does the incorporation of
someone else's creative work into a new work constitute fair use, and
when does it cross the line?
Read more here:
http://www.andycarvin.com/
permalink:
http://www.andycarvin.com/archives/2006/03/fighting_copyright_i.html
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Andy Carvin
acarvin (at) edc . org
andycarvin (at) yahoo . com
http://www.digitaldivide.net
http://www.andycarvin.com
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