Needless to say I have a very fundamental disagreement with this and in terms of the law it is absurd. Basically it says ( as did one of the chief people involved in the Carnegie project) Make NO effort to contact the actual RIGHTS HOLDER. Whether this is a studio, a company in Europe or an independent filmmaker under no circumstances would it be considered "due diligence" not to make every effort to contact the rights holder. IF the rights holder says they will not sell it and have no intention of releasing it, you will have to decide if what you plan to do is covered by 108, but you can't just say make no attempt to contact a rights holder. I find this not only the height of arrogance but just an outrageous attitude towards filmmakers & distributors.
I know I posted this but I will post it again so you can see what happens when and educational institution does NOT in fact engage in "due diligence" re copyright law. Actually this is a follow up to the original Chronicle article, I strongly suggest you read the follow up posts. I particularly like the part where some librarians tell authors they should be grateful they were going to have their works available illegally on line, since no one is taking out those books anyway. http://laboratorium.net/archive/2011/09/15/hathitrust_single-handedly_sinks_orphan_works_refo Also good luck on the "reasonable" price issue. Suppose you bought a 16mm print of a film for $1200 20 years ago. You reach the rights holder and they say yes they will make you a DVD-R for $1,000, is that "unreasonable"? It is after all less than you paid before? On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 11:41 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Following on the, um, lively 108 discussion of the past few days, I am > going to share some ideas regarding appropriate due diligence and research > guidelines Berkeley is developing (in connection with the NYU/Berkeley > Mellon project). > > The attached represents preliminary thinking regarding what we think is > reasonable research in advance of invoking 108. > > Gary Handman > > > > > VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues > relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, > preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and > related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective > working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication > between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and > distributors. > > -- Jessica Rosner Media Consultant 224-545-3897 (cell) 212-627-1785 (land line) [email protected] VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and distributors.
