How copyright could be killing culture

[multi]

How copyright could be killing culture

full story

The high cost of getting permission to use archival footage and photos threatens to put makers of documentaries out of business

As Americans commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. and his legacy today, no television channel will be broadcasting the documentary series Eyes on the Prize. Produced in the 1980s and widely considered the most important encapsulation of the American civil-rights movement on video, the documentary series can no longer be broadcast or sold anywhere.

Why?

The makers of the series no longer have permission for the archival footage they previously used of such key events as the historic protest marches or the confrontations with Southern police. Given Eyes on the Prize's tight budget, typical of any documentary, its filmmakers could barely afford the minimum five-year rights for use of the clips. That permission has long since expired, and the $250,000 to $500,000 needed to clear the numerous copyrights involved is proving too expensive.

This is particularly dire now, because VHS copies of the series used in countless school curriculums are deteriorating beyond rehabilitation. With no new copies allowed to go on sale, "the whole thing, for all practical purposes, no longer exists," says Jon Else, a California-based filmmaker who helped produce and shoot the series and who also teaches at the Graduate School of Journalism of the University of California, Berkeley.

Securing copyright clearances isn't just a problem for the makers of Eyes on the Prize. It's a constant, often insurmountable hurdle for documentary filmmakers and even for writers wanting to reproduce, say, copyrighted pictures or song lyrics in their work.

more here:
http://centerforsocialmedia.org/rock/index.htm
found via metafilter

[multi]

I think all certified gold records should go into the public domain. In England, once you get to a certain level, you're taxed at 90%, so Elton & Paul don't end up owning the place. U2 outgrosses Ireland, they could run the place, instead they support it. The point is, it's not that unusual to take a steep increment at the far side of income.

Gold records got that way because the public loved the record, bought it, paid money, we have a stake. We made these hits into what they are today by listening, learning, singing and adopting them into our hearts. People who make gold records will still have a lot going for them, people will still want to make records great so they'll have a chance of going gold.

The original artist can still sell records, perform, whatever, it's just that now others can sample, mashup, add their own stuff to the original whole or bits, play it in bars, record their own versions which might be better or worse, go ahead and try... all for free, without having to ask anyone. Regular folks and aspiring artists of all levels can also burn their own playlists, or the original album playlists, and sell them on streetcorners, not just in NY. We can give a grace period of 5, 10, 15 years before they become public, or at least come under some type of Creative Commons license. Another possibility is to just take all songs written before 1960, or '65 or '70.

The point is to identify good quality songs, the ones that are really integral to our culture, that have already returned substantially to their creators, and free them up completely. It should be a badge of honor to be accepted into the public domain. Making it completely open is the key because of the tendency of those closest to ownership, and thus with the power, to complicate & exploit whatever restrictions are in place in order to skim off more profit. The superior knowledge always gets used against those trying to enter. In this case we are trying to free music up for the public, which has almost no knowledge of complex copyright law. Freeing the music (remember my slogan?... still need to make those T-shirts) would be a huge, exciting, newsworthy event that would invigorate the dying music fanbase.

Those with the master tape can still advertise that fact and charge a premium for it. Quality does degenerate with each copy, so the knockoffs never sound the same and for truly good music, people will pay a few bucks for fidelity. A few thousand of our most basic, classic popular riffs & songs would be like a treasure trove for all these burgeoning new tech savvy artists. You do a complete bye on royalties for the biggest cash infusions to the least productive, leechy aspects of the music business, decimating the most unsavory players, and still preserving rights for people writing songs and recording music.

Artists putting out good music will be unaffected unless they go gold (some 1% of the time), in which case, they can still make lots of money, possibly, if they were smart vis a vis their label. At least that issue will have to be addressed between bands and labels more directly. They still get visibility and leverage which they can use to establish themselves as a brand, an entity. They can parlay that status somehow, if they are smart. The oppotunities are certainly there. As long as they produce good work, they will continue to thrive. Isn't that how it usually goes... work, earn, build something.

from a slightly related p2pnet.net article

[theknife]

that's actually a nice idea

[Drakonix]

The documentary is available on VHS - but they want loads of money for it. On Amazon, US$699.99 for the boxed set. Lowest price I saw was US$375.00. It could be DivX'ed, but not at that price.

A very good point that copyright holders are supressing culture and history by demanding high royalties from makers of documentary films. Then, maybe some don't want the truth to be known.

Since documentaries can tend to preserve history and truth, the answer might be to exempt documentary films from royalties because they are similar in nature to news gathering and reporting.

[Fantom]

Originally Posted by Drakonix

The documentary is available on VHS - but they want loads of money for it. On Amazon, US$699.99 for the boxed set. Lowest price I saw was US$375.00. It could be DivX'ed, but not at that price.

Apparently there's a well seeded 3CD torrent going round.

Guess I should keep that low kee..erm..I mean key..yeah

[TankGirl]

Check Downhill Battle for the latest developments...

Screening in Virginia Shut Down
holmes, February 1 4:49PM

The teacher who was planning a February 8th screening of Eyes on the Prize at James Madison High School in Vienna, VA for students and community members has been forced to cancel after a threat of lawsuit from the "licensee level". We absolutely cannot believe this - we had never anticipated that anyone would try to stop students and community members from watching a film about the Civil Rights Movement. Apparently, the law firm that contacted them says that the school district does not have the proper licenses. For those of you who don't know, you don't need a license (no such thing exists) if you have fair use rights to screen the film. This is really unbelievable-- if there is any fair use, free speech right at all, it applies to screenings of a historical documentary in a school (wikipedia on fair use). This is a public screening in an educational, non-commercial, one-time use setting. Messing with a school district in Virginia is a whole different ballgame, don't you think?

- tg

[TankGirl]

Wired has a good report from the screenings of the 'Eyes'.

Many of the 30 people (a handful of reporters among them) who crowded into attorney Don Jelinek's living room here worked in Mississippi and Alabama during the civil rights movement themselves -- registering black voters, staging sit-ins and marching, as well as getting harassed, shot at and jailed. These members of Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement meet monthly and decided to screen an illegal digital copy of the film when they learned that it was currently unavailable for broadcast or on DVD.

In Berkeley, Eyes on the Prize: Awakenings, covering 1954 to 1956, was screened on a large PC monitor to the rapt attention of everyone squeezed into the living room. The film covered significant events in the beginning of the civil rights movement like the murder of Emmett Till and the Montgomery bus boycott.

"The events, images, narratives and songs of Eyes on the Prize were not written, created or performed by the corporations who now have the copyrights under their lock and key," said Bruce Hartford, reading from a statement signed by the 20-plus members of the Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement group.

"These folks are burying our history," said Jelinek, who spent three years in the South working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, spending some of that time ducking gunfire. "Copyright law was never meant to interfere with the public's right to know. We expected that the experiences would be in the public domain.... The people who are barring this will have to pay a price."