Copyright & documentary

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ned c
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Copyright & documentary

Post by ned c »

http://farewelltohollywood.com/

Watch the trailer at this site, you will see it has clips from five major Hollywood feature films in it. My one attempt to use a clip from a Disney film elicited a request for $5,000 when I approached them. I attended a seminar given by the Director of FTH and he explained that he used the clips at no cost under the terms of the "Fair Use" clause of the Copyright Act. His film is to be released to 60 cinemas later this year. He assured us that the lawyers had cleared this and the clips were used as "relevant parts of a documentary".

Anyone have any information on this?

Ned C
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John Roberts
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Re: Copyright & documentary

Post by John Roberts »

Hi Ned - have you looked at Wikipedia about this? I was looking into this very issue recently and the Wiki article makes some interesting points, although it might not be an exact point of law:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
ned c
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Re: Copyright & documentary

Post by ned c »

Thanks John. I had checked at the IDA etc but good old Wikipedia gave the best review. I have to read this two or three more times to get to grips with it. This is US Law, is there a Fair Use clause in the UK Copyright Law? OK; should have looked on Wikipedia. The IDA review was interesting as it pointed out we must stop blurring out logos on shirts etc. as they are not protected and the reason TV blurs them out is to prevent free advertising. Welcome to the Copyright jungle!!

ned c
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John Roberts
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Re: Copyright & documentary

Post by John Roberts »

Good luck with it all Ned!

I think in general the UK has a slightly more laid back approach to what could be termed 'fair use' (and just about everything else as well hahaha) and are slightly less likely to start jumping up and down in a corporate litigious huff as usually happens in the US. In this age of internet global connectivity it's maybe about time some of the once well-defined boundaries between law in one country and another started to become interwoven.
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Dave Watterson
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Re: Copyright & documentary

Post by Dave Watterson »

You can get some idea of UK position here http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyr ... _of_others

I think John means that companies tend not to be so litigious in Britain as in the USA, but some - like Disney - are extremely protective of their property ... not so much for financial reasons as to stop them being associated with inappropriate matter ... such as racist or porn material.

If I remember correctly (a big IF) according to Mark Levy, a lawyer and officer of a former USA amateur film association, the USA's fair-dealing law allowed people there to use copyright music for their films provided they were not being shown too publicly or for money. That is not the case in the UK.

The intention behind the "fair use / fair dealing" clauses was so that accidental inclusion of copyright material in your holiday films (a band playing music, a branded packet of cornflakes etc) would not be a problem. It was also intended to help scholars who wished to quote briefly from literary works for the purpose of education or criticism. The third main beneficiaries are news outlets where it may be acceptable to include copyright material when a major news story is involved.

I am surprised that the film Ned referred to would be accepted. There are now so many tv shows which are basically clip-shows with extracts from other shows and films - that a small industry in selling clip rights has become established.
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