RSSWhen can copyrighted content be used in online videos?
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published July 7, 2008, 6:46 PM
With more videos turning up on the Web, how should "fair use" -- an element of copyright law first developed for the printed word -- best be applied within this emerging medium? That's the subject of a Ford Foundation-funded study.
To help answer questions around the legal repurposing of content, the Center for Social Media -- funded by the Ford Foundation -- has just released a new "Code of Best Practices."
Copyright law has certain features that permit quotations from copyrighted materials without permission or payment, under specified conditions, and fair use is "the most important of these features," according to the authors of the Future for Public Media Project's Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video.
The Project describes the new code as "a guide to current acceptable practices, drawing on the actual activities of creators," [and] derived from "the judgment of a national panel of experts."
"Inevitably, considerations of good faith come into play in fair use analysis. One way to show good faith is to provide credit or attribution, if possible, to the owners of the material being used," according to the new report.
Beyond that, the code outlines six conditions under which copyrighted content might be re-used in online videos while staying within the realm of "fair use" -- and by extension to that, copyright law:
- Commenting on or critiquing of copyrighted material
- Using copyrighted materials for illustration or example
- Capturing copyrighted material incidentally or accidentally
- Reproducing, reposting, or quoting in order to memorialize, preserve, or rescue an experience, an event, or a cultural phenomenon
- Copying, reposting, and recirculating a work or part of a work for purposes of launching a discussion
- Quoting in order to recombine elements to make a new work that depends for its meaning on (often unlikely) relationships between the elements
Yet the authors of the report also point to limitations of each of these conditions. For example, if the creator of an online video is using copyrighted material for "illustration or example," each use of the copyright content "should be no longer than necessary to achieve the intended effect."
The foundation also cites a number of myths about fair use, such as:
- If I'm not making any money off it, it's fair use
- If I'm making any money off it (or trying to), it's not fair use
- Fair use can't be entertaining
- If I try to license material, I've given up my chance to use fair use
- I really need a lawyer to make the call on fair use
"And finally, a special note from the lawyers among us: Be careful not to draw too much from specific past court cases," quipped the Project's panel.
Led by Peter Jaszi and Patricia Aufderheide, two professors at American University, the Code of Practices Committee also includes nine other members. Jaszi -- who is a law professor -- and five other members are attorneys. The other panelists, who are employed by universities, specialize in areas ranging from media studies and cinematic arts to creative writing and library science.
oh god, I've got the harelip kid AND Obama today.
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|no script ... deny com.com
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|I am not exactly sure what the point of this article is. Looks like an article based on a subject that is very subjective.
Infact the subject itself has never been solved which is why today's copyright holders and organizations that claim to protect the rights of said copyright act like criminals if those actions were judged by a subjective person.
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|"Fair use can't be entertaining"
Sure it can, all you have to do is tune into the ongoing debate on the subject.
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|Those were labeled as myths. So its not necessary to point out that they aren't true as that has already been done.
The whole article looks like a non-event.
""And finally, a special note from the lawyers among us: Be careful not to draw too much from specific past court cases," quipped the Project's panel. "
In other words the guidelines are speculative at best, subject to change without notice and peanuts may have been processed with the same equipment.
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|It certainly can in the UK. The BBC v BSB (The 1990 World Cup Case) in the High Court...
"The UK High Court took a broad approach to the question of fair dealing, holding that the rebroadcasts were for the purposes of reporting the news, rejecting the suggestion that the BSB's purpose was not to report the news, but that it had an 'oblique motive' to quickly boost their popularity by using the most memorable highlights of the matches. The fact that the highlights were also entertaining, and that the BSB benefited from providing them, did not mean that the purpose of the rebroadcast was not for reporting the news"
http://nic.suzor.com/art...s/TransformativeUse.pdf
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|"Fair use can't be entertaining"
Actually, being serious for a moment, one of the original intents and protections of Fair Use was the use of material for satirical purposes.
Satire falls under fair use and is, for many, one of the highest forms of humor (when done properly).
This statement alone, of it not being fair use if it is entertaining shows that the group apparently has no clue what they are doing.
...add to that:
I really need a lawyer to make the call on fair use
...and we've got even more ludicrous BS. This is an outright lie.
as is this:
If I'm not making any money off it, it's fair use
Distributing another persons works in full, even if it is not for profit, is *not* covered by Fair Use.
These people are idiots and need to go back and actually *read* the Fair Use section of copyright. perhaps that should have been the first thing they did.
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|Did you, and the others read that those points where under __myths__, and as such, pointing to something that is believed, but it is not true?
Anyway, when reading it, i thought the writer of the article should have made it more obvious.
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|lmao....
Burned.
That'll teach me to skim and not RTFA...
Ahh... who am I kidding, not it won't. ;)
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|I agree with PC_tool on this one. the way it reads its like the panel was stating a clarification of myths. as such the quotes under myths seem to mean that its their interpretation of what fair use was over the myth. I have yet to see the source of the panels discussion so IDK myself. However from this article alone that was how I read it.
One thing is true A Consumer Digital rights act clarifying such Fair use guidelines MUST be legislated at some point in the future. Beariers to this have been put up continually from teh industry to prevent such clarification for the specific reason they do NOT want such guidelines ever put to the limiting their rights to bully their consumers into their mindset of If you see it ever you pay for it each time. At some point this will be done with retina scan and time observed watching content will be automatically deducted from credits. This vision has already been both theorized and studied as a possible future business practice.
DMCRA (Digital Media Consumer Rights Act) IS the only protection for the consumer from such draconian methods of extortion. for those interested in this continually bypassed act look here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCRA
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