doc it out » Fair Use

Media That Matters Festival Announces Line-up

Agnes Varnum — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:37:12 +0000

The 8th Annual Media That Matters Film Fest will kick off on May 28 with a screening of the winning shorts at the IFC Center in NYC. But, one of the beautiful things about this fest is that it is online and anyone can watch the films! Full line-up (ttile followed by award) after the jump.
HAMMOUDI / JURY AWARD
Lebanon | 9:25 | Documentary | Directed by Anwar Saab, Produced by Tima Khalil
A courageous boy rises above violence in Lebanon with wit, humor and the support of his best friend.

A LOUD COLOR / LEGACY AWARD
USA | 6:34 | Documentary | Directed & Produced by Brent Joseph
Louis Harding takes a tour of his neighborhood in post-Katrina New Orleans, recounting the contributions of notable African Americans to New Orleans culture and the long road ahead.

ARGENTINA TURNING AROUND / LABOR AWARD
Argentina & USA | 9:18 | Documentary | Directed & Produced by Melissa Young & Mark Dworkin
Argentinean factory workers unite to bolster the economy, recreate jobs and stabilize communities after business owners abandon their factories during an economic downturn.

PERVERSION OF JUSTICE / CHANGEMAKER AWARD
USA | 7:44 | Documentary | Directed & Produced by Melissa Mummert
What can be said of a justice system that sentences a young mother of three to life in prison for a first-time and non-violent drug-related offense?

DIANA / EMPOWERMENT AWARD
USA | 6:53 | Documentary | Directed & Produced by Project: Think Different
Mother, daughter, sister, friend and fighter. Diana and Kathy share their views about living with HIV.

THE COUNTDOWN / EMERGING ARTIST AWARD
USA | 5:49 | Spoken Word | Directed by Rene Dongo, Produced by ICA Fast Forward Boston
Sofia Snow’s spoken word composition unleashes a hypnotic barrage of words and images about post-9/11 America.

AFRICAN UNDERGROUND: HIP HOP IN SENEGAL / ROOTS & RHYMES AWARD
Senegal & USA | 6:14 | Documentary | Directed by Magee McIlvaine, Ben Herson, Chris Moore, Produced by Nomadic Wax and Sol Productions
Step into the African Underground and listen to a new voice inspired by religion, politics, old school Hip Hop and Senegalese culture.

SOMETHING’S MOVING / UNSPOKEN TRUTH AWARD
USA | 7:14 | Documentary | Directed by Randy Vasquez, Produced by Jonathan Skurnik
Survivors of a U.S. boarding school for the Lakota are breaking the chain of trauma in order to heal their spirits, their community and the country.

A NOMAD’S LIFE / SUSTAINING TRADITIONS AWARD
Tibet & U.S. | 9:23 | Documentary | Directed & Produced by Lynn True & Nelson Walker, Co-Produced by Tsering Perlo & Keefe Murren
A young Tibetan family questions whether their nomadic traditions can survive against the challenges of a rapidly modernizing world.

AMERICA FOR DUMMIES / YOUTH VOICE AWARD
USA | 8:14 | Documentary | Directed by Niaz Mosharraf, Produced by Reel Works Teen Filmmaking
Niaz Mosharraf challenges his peers on their knowledge of current-affairs and asks questions like: “Why do we know more about K-Fed than Kofi Annan?” Acknowledged for effectively employing fair use by the Center for Social Media

E-WASTE / ENVIRONMENT AWARD
USA | 1:41 | Animation | Animated by Ian Lynam, Produced by Morgan Currie & Lindsay Utz, GOOD Magazine
An animated film illustrates the environmental and human damage caused by electronic waste while offering solutions to this global problem.

EVERY THIRD BITE / GOOD FOOD AWARD
USA | 8:53 | Documentary | Directed & Produced by The Meerkat Media Collective
In the past few years, millions of bees have disappeared from their hives. More than just a honey matter, the lives of bees are connected to us and our ecosystems in more ways than we can count.

A Fair Use Win

Agnes Varnum — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:19:57 +0000

It’s been a while since I posted about fair use. But the Center for Social Media, the Washington College of Law and others who have joined the fray, like Stanford’s Fair Use project, continue to fight the good fight. From the Center’s newsletter:

Chicago filmmaker Floyd Webb wanted to make a movie about a colorful martial arts figure, who called himself Counte Dante (http://johnkeehan.blogspot.com/). The grandmaster of the Black Dragon Fighting Society, William V. Aguiar III, tried to stop him by blocking his access to images of Counte Dante and material from his training video. But Webb had attended an Independent Feature Project panel discussion of the Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use. (IFP was a signatory and co-author of the document, which was facilitated by the Center and the Washington College of Law.) Read the whole article>>

Got a great short that employs fair use? Submit to the Center’s contest! In partnership with the University Film & Video Association, there are cash prizes for student and faculty entries. Deadline is May 1.

SXSW Panel: Is Fair Use Fair?

Agnes Varnum — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:52:26 +0000

Is Fair Use Fair?
As independent documentaries continue to gain momentum, and the monetization of information becomes a more tangible topic, “fair use” has become a more popular concept. But is there more than meets the eye to “fair use?” Can an independent filmmaker rest assured under its implications, or will it only make the filmmaking process more difficult? Experts from this arena will gather to share stories and try to get to the bottom of whether or not “fair use” is fair. This session will be moderated by the Center for Social Media’s Patricia Aufderheide.

Fair Use at PodCampNYC Tomorrow!

Agnes Varnum — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 14:36:10 +0000

I haven’t checked the PodCamp NYC schedule in a while and it turns out they programmed my suggested panel on fair use! Please come visit!

What: Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use

When: Sat Apr 7, 5pm – 5:45pm

Where: The New Yorker Hotel, Chelsea B – 60 -Niche

[Modified] Description: This set of guidelines developed in the documentary film community can help guide podcast/vloggers to navigate intellectual property waters. Learn four areas where fair use may apply to your work, see video examples and pick up a copy of the Statement. Can’t make the panel? Download it and watch video examples at the Center for Social Media’s Fair Use Resources.

Fair use can now be insured

Agnes Varnum — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 16:37:59 +0000

One of my longtime friends for my days at the Center for Social Media, Simon Kilmurry who works with P.O.V. and has been a long-time advocate of the fair use project, reminded me that I should post about the news that National Union, a member company of AIG, will now be accepting fair use claims that are made based on the Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use and accompanied by a letter from a lawyer. I did post about this over at Renew Media but as I had promised here that I would keep cross-posting to a minimum, I didn’t. But Simon is correct that this is very important and if you aren’t reading Re:Sources, I should provide the scoop here. So, apologies for any lapse in reporting!

The Trades covered the story as well, so it must be true. Also, Larry Lessig announced it on his blog which also makes it true for a lot of folks. If you are a filmmaker and were waiting for the powers that be to annoint your user rights, there you have it.

A small PS – Lessig announced legal clinic assistance to filmmakers for their fair use claims, but also, Peter Jaszi’s clinic at the Washington College of Law as well as Jennifer Urban at USC, among others, have been doing this since the Statement was released. I also have a list of lawyers who understand utilizing fair use and have done so for other filmmakers, so there is help out there! But this kind of assistance doesn’t mean you don’t have to be smart about communication law yourself, so get Michael Donaldon’s book, Clearance & Copyright

This Film is Not Yet Rated

Agnes Varnum — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 13:00:44 +0000

Another Independent Spirit Award, Best Documentary nominee is This Film is Not Yet Rated by Kirby Dick. I’m watching these films as I am eligible to vote for the awards and I figured I’d report on the films in the doc category. Much like The Road to Guantanamo, This Film left me wanting more.

Dick does a fantastic job of illustrating the process of the MPAA ratings board and the sheer absurdity of it given that the MPAA, which is a lobby collective of the Hollywood studios, effectively uses ratings to censor independent content (that which is made outside of the studio system). By discovering the identity of the up-to-now secret raters, Dick uncovers lackadaisical following of their own rules which has major implications for film artists and takes on a sort of grand significance.

Few would argue the need to give film goers some guidelines to help them judge the content of a film before sitting down in front of it, so the question becomes what is the best way to do this and who should have the responsibility? The MPAA is funded entirely by the studios so it always serves their interests; it isn’t an independent or objective body. Though some in the film call for government to oversee the process, the whole reason that it is handled within the industry is to avoid government censorship. Where in the world is government oversight of artistic content better than what currently goes on with the MPAA? Even the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has had major struggles with government and content on public broadcasting in recent years. Let’s not kid ourselves.

The film ends abruptly with the members of the appeals committee who reject Dick’s appeal of his NC-17 rating 10-0 and are largely theater owners. Almost completely unexplored is that the ratings system is largely agreed upon industry-wide which means theater owners. They could choose to show films that the MPAA rated NC-17 but they don’t because they don’t want to. This Film is Not Yet Rated places the lion’s share of blame on Jack Valenti, former head of the MPAA, but the problems are systemic and the film stops short of going down these smaller yet perhaps more pervasive roads. Top-down systems only work when those under it go along with it.

The film has been a big deal in my world over the past year because it utilizes clips from many films to illustrate its points, and with the support of IFC, Dick employed fair use for those clips. So, to me this film is important in a number of ways and it is certainly entertaining – the lesbian private investigators turn what could have been dry leg work into an amusing romp. (For more on Fair Use, click the subject category on the left.)

Docs have been getting a reputation for running too long, and I tend to agree with that, but when investigating a topic of significance, it does seem important that the audience not feel like you simply didn’t ask the hard questions.

Interview with Kirby Dick by David D’Arcy

Copyright Panel at IDFA

Agnes Varnum — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 21:39:46 +0000

I promise I’ll only cross post when I really want you to read something…I posted an article that I wrote about a copyright panel discussion at IDFA on the Re:Sources blog, Worldwide Copyright Reform?. If you have been following the copyright work I have been up to, I think you’ll find this coverage interesting – it really was the first time that I’ve had a chance to hear from the international community on the state of copyright elsewhere.

Revver-ize Your Content

Agnes Varnum — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 11:00:53 +0000

Have you seen the Mentos & Diet Coke Bellagio fountain? Or perhaps you are into AskANinja? These are some of the web’s recent phenoms and the question on everyone’s mind is how to monetize this kind of content? Hits on YouTube prove profitability potential but as of yet, neither Google or YouTube share profits with content creators. Revver has a different model – place an ad at the end of the content and share the money with whoever made the video and those who (re)posted it (yes, I registered as an affiliate). So elegant, it’s amazing no other video hosting sites are doing it.

Via BoingBoing last week, Cory Doctorow had Steven Starr, the founder of Revver, over to USC for a chat with students entitled “Copy-friendly Business Models.” A recording is online and though he spends a long time going through all aspects of the business model, I think you’ll find it interesting to listen to. “Revverizing” a video means that by posting online via Revver, wherever your video goes online, it goes with a small script that will call up the ending add and put money into your account anytime someone clicks on it. And, another interesting aspect is that Revver doesn’t even aim to be the top viewing portal for it’s content – they succeed no matter where the video is viewed.

And Revver’s way of dealing with copyright infringement? Zero tolerance, which according to Starr, has resulted in a very low percentage of submissions that are blatant illegal posts. Or in other words, Revver content providers got the message and are making original work. But, also awesome, is Revver’s acknowledgement of Creative Commons licensing and ‘fair use’ of copyrighted materials (including a copyright information page that links to the Center for Social Media and other sites that go into more depth to empower creators!).

Anyone Revverizing their content looking to toast or trash it? I’d love to hear how it’s working out. Starr says in his talk that the Mentos & Diet Coke folks are off and running with cash to do more production work.

doc it out » Fair Use

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