Stop Orphan Works Copyright Bill!

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Doug Okamoto

Using small portions of copyrighted material for nonprofit educational purposes is covered under the Fair Use guidelines of the Copyright law. http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

Of course under "Fair Use" only portions of the copyrighted material can be used, how much is a "portion" is what is debatable. I've heard it being anywhere from 3 musical notes of a song to 1/10th of a motion picture.

Using the clips as part of the presentation in a delivered-for-profit seminar whose target audience happens to be educators is light-years removed from being one of the "nonprofit educational purposes" enshrined in the Fair Use doctrine.

[Chris Hurd]

That thread is at http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=121294

And the original poster of that thread is asking how to obtain clearance to use those clips.

If he's willing to pay for clearance, then it's *perfectly* legal. Happens all the time.

See Chapter 17 of "Clearance and Copyright" by Michael C. Donaldson, which deals specifically with obtaining single-use and multiple-use clearance of various kinds of film clips.

[Doug Okamoto]

Originally Posted by Steve House

Using the clips as part of the presentation in a delivered-for-profit seminar whose target audience happens to be educators is light-years removed from being one of the "nonprofit educational purposes" enshrined in the Fair Use doctrine.

I'm wondering where in Mike's post did he say this was a for profit seminar? That is the assumption that everyone is making because the presenter (and probably Mike as well) is getting paid but that doesn't necessarily make it a for profit organization. Mike needs to get clarification from the client. If this is a for profit organization then by all means he needs to get clearance the use the work.

But let's get back to Rick's original post in this thread shall we? I think this "Orphan Works Copyright Bill" is something that we (individually, not necessarily DV Info) need to keep track of. I want to say thanks to Rick for bringing it to our attention. This is very important that this bill does not happen, and it looks like it won't but we (individually, not necessarily DV Info) need to keep our eyes open.

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Doug Okamoto

But let's get back to Rick's original post in this thread shall we? I think this "Orphan Works Copyright Bill" is something that we (individually, not necessarily DV Info) need to keep track of. I want to say thanks to Rick for bringing it to our attention. This is very important that this bill does not happen, and it looks like it won't but we (individually, not necessarily DV Info) need to keep our eyes open.

As it stands right now, if you want to use a piece of music from the 30's, something very likely still under copyright, in your production and after months of searching you can't find the copyright owner to get permission, you still can't use it because if you do and someone steps forward claiming THEY own it and demanding a zillion bucks damages, you're scr***d. Under the new bill, if the owner can't be located after "due diligence" you can use it without incurring serious liability. What's wrong with that?

[Doug Okamoto]

It all depends on what the definition of "due diligence" is. It is (especially in this bill) very unclear. Also, I personally don't want to have to take my time, pay a copyright attorney (oh, wait a minute I have one on retainer...) and have to take a bozo to court simply because he thought that "due diligence" was spending 5 minutes on the Internet using MSN search to find out who owned the video that he originally got from my website! And to top it all off I don't even get my attorney fees that I've paid back because the bozo has declared bankruptcy in the middle of the case!

The USA, even though a great country, is very litigious and most cases like the above take years to resolve, if ever.