The Wall Street Journal has an interesting new feature called “Notes from the Ivory Tower” about trends in academic law that affect business. This debut column, written by Brandt Goldstein, focuses on the “clearance culture,” the rising belief among film makers that they must obtain rights clearance for every snippet of copyrighted matter used in a documentary.
But a growing number of scholars, including academicians from Duke University, The University of Oregon, New York University, and American Universiy, are hoping to ease the burdens of typically underfunded documentary film makers by setting them straight on the principle of fair use. One group, from the University of Oregon, produced a comic book on copyright law (I kid you not) titled “Bound by Law?,” which is intended as a working guide to fair use.
Another group, headed by American University’s Peter Jaszi developed a document called Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use, which steers film makers through the pitfalls of using copyrighted material.
One big chicken-and-egg problem: small film makers rarely litigate when threatened, so the case laws on fair use isn’t as robust as it should be. If there were more lawsuits, according to the experts cited in the column, film makers would likely gain greater legal protection because the courts would probably support a lot of cases of “incidental” use, where only stray bits of copyrighted material make it into film.
Cynthia Brumfield at 7:19 AM|Comments(0)
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