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Essay: Fair Use

Started by Andrew, April 30, 2008, 04:10:22 PM

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Andrew

Fair use is how review websites use copyrighted material without first securing permission from the copyright holders.  However, I believe many webmasters (and readers) are a little foggy about this part of copyright law.  I hope that my article will help to explain the subject. 

Feel free to post further information and references.

Andrew Borntreger
Badmovies.org

Kruge

Neil Gaiman (neilgaiman.com) talks about this issue too in his blog and gives some advice to readers.

He does it from a "content provider's" point of view, which might be an interesting angle for some. And he himself offers some of his stories for free (both e-book and audio) - which *allways* is worth the time imho. He's my personal number 2 author, right after moster pratchett. :)

Katherine

I have prepared a short list of movies that I financially supported by buying or renting after reading reviews on your site.  Anyone who gives you crap about your use of the fine movies you feature is either a moron or malicious.

Night of the Living Dead, The Howling III, Lake Placid, Dawn of the Dead, Rodan, and every Godzilla movie I've ever watched.  And that's not counting the movies that I revisited after reading reviews.

Jason Ratliff

I'll agree here.  There are a lot of movies I've purchased and/or rented after reading reviews from this site.  Based on the content described and the images provided, I've been able to make informed judgment about which movies I want to track down and watch (and some of them took a lot of looking to find).  Personally, I feel this site provides a great service to those of us who enjoy movies like these.  It provides great exposure for many films some of us might never hear about otherwise.
The only complaint I can see from the filmmakers side is they may feel insulted to have their wonderful gem of a film to be called "bad".  And that's an opinion... to which everyone is entitled.  While a filmmaker, like any other artist would usually rather have their work respected, not every movie can be (and not every movie should be).  And if I had the opportunity to make movies, I'd rather have my movie be infamous rather than forgotten.
I remember reading a comic book once where the super heroine had to fight off a vengeful Greek god.  The god had gotten angry and was raining down attacks on history museums for housing the ancient relics meant for his worship.  After much fighting, the heroine was able to stop him, with a speech about how even though his worshipers were long dead, and his relics were not on the pedestal he'd intended, she couldn't understand how he could be angry at the few people who still show him some sort of remembrance and respect by displaying and studying his artifacts, even if it wasn't the worship he angrily felt he deserved.

Andrew

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Neil Gaiman (neilgaiman.com) talks about this issue too in his blog and gives some advice to readers.

His blog entry about the Harry Potter Lexicon court case, correct?  I think that the company and author who are publishing the book have a very hard case to prove.  Copyright does protect an author from others making derivative works.  I am not certain there has ever been a case that covered an encyclopedia about "facts" from a work of fiction, but hopefully you understand why I say that the Lexicon could be judged a derivative work.  I am also interested to read that court case once the court's findings are published.

Quote
I have prepared a short list of movies that I financially supported by buying or renting after reading reviews on your site.  Anyone who gives you crap about your use of the fine movies you feature is either a moron or malicious.

Quote
I'll agree here.  There are a lot of movies I've purchased and/or rented after reading reviews from this site.  Based on the content described and the images provided, I've been able to make informed judgment about which movies I want to track down and watch (and some of them took a lot of looking to find).  Personally, I feel this site provides a great service to those of us who enjoy movies like these.  It provides great exposure for many films some of us might never hear about otherwise.

I have not really had problems with copyright holders trying to push me around by sending DMCA or takedown notices over the years.  There have been a couple, but they have never gone past one or two cease and desist emails.  Once I respond back, we usually either work the situation out, or else the person completely dropped it and never emailed me again.

The good thing here is that my goal is to operate within fair use.  I am not trying to infringe on the copyrights of the movie's owners, but want to review their work, discuss its aspects, and even what it made me think about.  If the review adds something to culture and provides a service to readers, then that is exactly why we have fair use - so that can happen.
Andrew Borntreger
Badmovies.org

Robert MacDonald

When I saw the title of your essay I suspected that you received a hassle over your content.  I agree with the poster(s) above on your site, as I myself have purchased several movies based on your reviews.  As a lover of B movies I fondly remember the first time I viewed killer clowns from outer space, zardoz, galactic gigolo and many more.  Your reviews are written in a style that many love to read because it is fun to read.  I don't normally watch the movie clips but the images themselves offer a peek at the quality of work.  You cannot make me believe that many of these filmmakers even remotely figured their movies would be taken seriously.  Killer lawnmowers? Aliens that look like small lobsters or big ants with faces. 

Nothing of your site would warrant a issue to you seeing as most of these movies get rented/purchased due to your diligent (and humorous) work.  How much money has been made by them due to your reviews?  I would suspect a great deal.

Kester Pelagius

Quote from: Andrew on May 01, 2008, 10:40:28 AM
I have not really had problems with copyright holders trying to push me around by sending DMCA or takedown notices over the years.  There have been a couple, but they have never gone past one or two cease and desist emails.  Once I respond back, we usually either work the situation out, or else the person completely dropped it and never emailed me again.

Same here.  Only real problem I've had is having to turn down screener offers because I feel that the movie is not the sort of thing that would appeal to me, thus any review I wrote would likely be biased towards the negative, and I don't feel that's fair.  This is a general rule that has evolved over time with me rooted in my experiene with reviewing RPG product.  (When comments about the review say the reader felt the reviewer was pulling teeth to say something nice about a product they obvious disliked you know something's wrong.)
Cosmic Cinema - SF articles and reviews.

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Kruge

Yes, that Potter thing is one Neil wrote about, but I think he also looked into the whole subject of copyrights a little deeper, because his ongoing plans to offer part of his work online for free.

Of course he's the creator, but can't simply publish ebooks of novels that are available as books... I'm not to deep into that matter myself, I am relatively new in his blog. I jsut mentioned it because at this point I came across several threads in several blogs and forums talking about the issue of copyrights, fair use and related issues. :)


sachinik

Hi,

It is very nice article about fair use. For instance if I use only the user's rating of movies from your website or from other similar site, in my website and clearly specify your website's name as source and a hyperlink to your site, will it considered as fair use?

Sachin

Rev. Powell

Quote from: sachinik on June 27, 2011, 10:23:31 AM
Hi,

It is very nice article about fair use. For instance if I use only the user's rating of movies from your website or from other similar site, in my website and clearly specify your website's name as source and a hyperlink to your site, will it considered as fair use?

Sachin

I can't speak for Andrew, but... I think there's little question that reporting a rating (as opposed to the actual text) that someone gave out easily qualifies as fair use.  A business like Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB who has devised an algorithm to rate movies could argue that their rating should be protected from appropriation, but as a practical matter I think they're quite happy to have people throw around their ratings (with attribution) because it raises awareness of their service.  I never think twice about reporting on IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes ratings. 

From my own perspective as a rule of thumb I consider it Fair Use if someone reprinted a couple of sentences I wrote, or less than 10% of a review, with attribution.  Of course anyone can summarize anything I have said in their own words and then my desires don't come into play.
I'll take you places the hand of man has not yet set foot...

Lindsay

First, I'd like to thank you for this article. It has removed some of my concerns about monetizing my YouTube videos. However, I do still have one concern and I would hope that you might be able to address it. The primary purpose to my YouTube channel is book reviews. However, I am also reviewing each episode of True Blood (since it's based a book series). I give my opinions on what happened during that episode and I discuss the show with my subscribers in the comments. My review tends to range from 5-10 minutes and as I talk, a video frame sits next to me and plays the scene or character that I am talking about. For most of the review there is a clip playing most of the time (I rarely use audio from the show). This is, of course, meant to give the viewer something stimulating to look at besides my face-- something to help them understand what I am talking about. My concern is that I might be using too much, since clips play throughout most of my review. To give you an idea of what I am talking about, I was going to provide you with a link to my latest True Blood review but unfortunately this site won't let me. So any answer you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Rev. Powell

Quote from: Lindsay on August 19, 2011, 11:21:04 PM
First, I'd like to thank you for this article. It has removed some of my concerns about monetizing my YouTube videos. However, I do still have one concern and I would hope that you might be able to address it. The primary purpose to my YouTube channel is book reviews. However, I am also reviewing each episode of True Blood (since it's based a book series). I give my opinions on what happened during that episode and I discuss the show with my subscribers in the comments. My review tends to range from 5-10 minutes and as I talk, a video frame sits next to me and plays the scene or character that I am talking about. For most of the review there is a clip playing most of the time (I rarely use audio from the show). This is, of course, meant to give the viewer something stimulating to look at besides my face-- something to help them understand what I am talking about. My concern is that I might be using too much, since clips play throughout most of my review. To give you an idea of what I am talking about, I was going to provide you with a link to my latest True Blood review but unfortunately this site won't let me. So any answer you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

The following is information, and not advice. 

Lindsay, the truth is no one can give you a firm answer beforehand.  If there is a claim of copyright infringement, then you could raise a fair use defense.  In the unlikely event you go to trial, the court will analyze four factors set out in the statute (see this page for a list with some discussion and examples - http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html).  The way the fair use statute is interpreted, however, can vary from one federal circuit to another, which makes it even more difficult to give firm answers before a controversy has arisen.

If you are really worried, you should consult a local attorney.  If that's not reasonable, use as little of the copyrighted work as possible to illustrate your point.  Also, make the clip selected relevant to whatever you're discussing in the review so that it meets the description "quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment" (which has been ruled permissible fair use).

The other thing to consider, besides the law, is the practicality of the situation.  Do you think your reviews help or hurt sales of "True Blood" merchandise?  If they encourage sales, do you think the copyright holders will object?  Might they have "bigger fish to fry"?  If there is a claim of copyright infringement, the first thing that will happen---before any lawsuit---is that they will request for you to take down the material.  Would you be OK with that result? 

The Fair Use exception is intended to promote legitimate commentary and reviews.  From what you have said here, your intended use is well within the spirit of the law.   

Hope that's helpful.  Again, if you have more specific questions consult a local attorney. 
I'll take you places the hand of man has not yet set foot...

Andrew

Rev Powell gives some good advice.  I'll chime in with the fact that having 10 minutes of (what I believe are) a 60 minute episode playing while you give your critique is likely to earn you DMCA complaints.  At the least, they will be disruptive.  They could also cause your reviews to be pulled from YouTube, and YouTube is known to suspend accounts that get a lot of DMCA notifications.  I've seen it happen to other movie review sites that use YouTube hosted video reviews.  Granted, it does appear more common when the review is critical of the movie.
Andrew Borntreger
Badmovies.org

Rev. Powell

Andrew is right, playing a clip in the background the entire time the review is going could be considered pushing the limits.  It helps if there's no audio, though.  That means the clip you show isn't much of a substitute for the real thing. 

If you want an alternative, you might try using a still rather than a clip, and just run very short clips as necessary for your commentary.  Think of ways to use as little content as necessary to get your legitimate points across. 
I'll take you places the hand of man has not yet set foot...