See What’s Out There

So in my Webinar today about video the issue of Fair Use came up. It came up because we did a little mash-up for N-TEN to promote the contest we are running. And N-TEN was told this was illegal and we would all go to jail and they were going to take it down.

I said… hold on a minute! Maybe this is Fair Use. Here’s what I wrote to Katrin, the ED of N-TEN:

Katrin

It’s your call, but I think I didn’t explain my position too well here when we spoke about it. I am pretty sure this would fall under the legal principle of FAIR USE. Companies like Disney and the music companies have tried to get people to think that *any use* of a copyrighted material is not allowed. This is not the case.

From Stanford’s Fair Use Guidelines:
“2. Parody

A parody is a work that ridicules another, usually well-known work, by imitating it in a comic way. Judges understand that by its nature, parody demands some taking from the original work being parodied. Unlike other forms of fair use, a fairly extensive use of the original work is permitted in a parody in order to “conjure up” the original.”

Judges are required to look at 4 factors in determining Fair Use:

“The four factors judges consider are:

1. the purpose and character of your use
2. the nature of the copyrighted work
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market.”

The use here being nonprofit, educational, no impact on the potential market, etc… Here’s a link to read more.

An attorney will most likely tell you that judges decide what is fair use, there is no other way to know for sure, and better safe than sorry. I think that’s a cop out. Seems to me that no judge would hold this as infringement based on the standards and no rights holder would even try to test it in this case.

So, I think you shouldn’t be too defensive here, and I think we shouldn’t disqualify entries that appropriately parody copyrighted materials.

Michael.

The exciting thing about all of this is that I think N-TEN is now thinking about taking some leadership on this issue and helping nonprofits – as much as anyone can – navigate the world of Fair Use. One important source of information for us comes from the Center for Social Media at American University. They have been the most important source of information for filmmakers on this issue and I encourage you to check them out.

I just want to also give some props to Beth Kanter, who reminded me during the Webinar today when the issue of Fair Use came up that folks should look to Creative Commons for a lot of material that they can use without worry.

And Katrin pointed out a video that is on YouTube on this issue. It is a nice little primer on the subject. I have embedded it below:

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 16th, 2006 at 7:04 pm and is filed under Video, Nonprofits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.