As I previously announced, I’m blogging about fair use at the Center for Social Media website, but I’ll probably continue to do a couple of cross-over posts to encourage you to check it out. All over the net are announcements about the Google purchase of YouTube and what this huge merger might mean for video content online. Certainly it’s no secret that YouTube has had it’s share of issues in dealing with users uploading material for which they don’t own the copyright.

Sparked by a Wall Street Journal Online post, my CSM post deals with myths about fair use, but what I won’t say there but will here, is that the so-called experts are obviously only looking at one side of the picture - the economics. Ok, yes, the article is in the WSJ, but while they allow fair use to pop up into the discussion, neither really goes so far as to acknowledge there are, in this world, legitimate claims of fair use. Fair use is a more nuanced conversation than “yes” or “no,” and it absolutly may apply to work that goes beyond someone’s basement.

I was at the Woodstock Film Festival this weekend and was at one point sitting at a table with two distributors talking about fair use. One felt that if only the insurance companies would bend an inch and actually cover the company for taking what are fairly low-risk claims (now that the Best Practices Statement is afloat), that they could really make headway. The folks within the company feel comfortable with fair use, but need to have a paper trail that covers the business. The other distributor was essentially opposite: if the project doesn’t come to them with everything paid for, they won’t take the project because the company had been “burned” in the past.

Though both points-of-view are understandable from an economic standpoint, neither show an understanding of the chilling effects that this kind of economic censorship has on the kinds of films being made, how we as a culture will remember ourselves when the only material we see in films is that which we can buy, or how many artists work will never see the light of an audience because a distributor refuses to take a “risk” (Los Angeles Plays Itself, as an example). While I understand that no business entity wants to be a martyr for freedom of expression, I guess I expect more of companies in the film business - after all, art is about influencing the way people see the world, inciting dialogue (at least that what filmmakers are always saying they want), and not merely reflecting back images of culture, but providing windows to new possibilities.

Opinions?