All Posts Tagged With: "center for social media"
A Fair Use Win
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.
iW: Can Michael Moore Save the Theatrical Nonfiction Market?
Anthony Kaufman polled industry folks about Michael Moore’s announced Doc Night plan in his excellent indieWIRE article today. “Reactions to the plan are largely split between documentary filmmakers, who welcome any initiative that helps get their work out to the world, and industry insiders, who are skeptical about the plan’s feasibility and disturbed by what they see as a further ghettoization of the documentary form.”
As I was reading the article, I was feeling like some of us (myself included) come across as quite snarky about the whole thing. I can’t hold back when it comes to Moore; in a typical fashion, he couldn’t bother to comment for Anthony’s article, which just adds fuel to my snark about the man. But as Thom Powers says at the end of the article, “When you have a curated event, you’re building a relationship with the audience. When they have a couple of good experiences, then they don’t have to be sold on each title individually.” I was a season pass holder for Thom’s excellent Stranger Than Fiction series in New York and would gladly promote something similar in cities across America.
Aufderheide on NPR
Thanks to Amy King for pointing to an appearance by my friend and mentor Pat Aufderheide on The Kojo Nnamdi Show talking about documentary. The segment is called The Future of Documentary Film and unfortunately is guest hosted by Matthew Felling, who thinks that Michael Moore is not a documentary filmmaker and chooses to argue the point with Pat. But, she’s a pro and her understanding of the history of docs shines through his amateur, Republican viewpoint. I wish that she had gotten to talk more about the future of docs, as she started talking about what she called personal audiences, in describing new modes of distribution, but had to deal with a doc neophyte and time got cut short. Hear Pat and join the fan club!
Fair use can now be insured
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
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.
I'm really looking forward to this one and was excited to see the trailer posted, but it looks like the ...
Thanks for the feedback Mark, I'll keep that in mind :) 
Wow, that does look great!
More video, Agnes! I love when you post cool stuff like this! 
Right on! I thought the exact same thing when I read the times article. I think its also ...