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FAIR USE IN ONLINE VIDEO An Introduction to the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use For Online Video

FAIR USE AND COPYRIGHT Remix Culture Video

• What is copyright? What is Copyright? • Why does it exist?

COPYRIGHT • Provides incentives for people to create culture • Gives creators some control over their work • But also puts some limits on that control

• What would happen if there were no such thing as copyright? • What would happen if there were no limits to copyright?

No protection for creators’ work stops creativity BUT Too much protection also stifles new makers’ creativity

Copyright law has built in several ways to maintain BALANCE: • Limitations on the amount of time something can be copyrighted • Special exemptions (these include for educators, librarians, public broadcasting, the blind, and other special cases) • Fair Use

FAIR USE Section of copyright law that protects the rights of creators who want to incorporate other people’s copyrighted material into their work.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT? • Protects Freedom of Speech • Safety valve that prevents censorship Why is Fair Use Important? • It gives artists the right to critique or build on existing culture • Culture only grows where we are allowed to repurpose other people’s work

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN TO APPLY FAIR USE? Copyright laws asks two questions: • Did the unlicensed use “transform” the copyrighted material by using it for a different purpose? • Was the amount and nature of material taken appropriate?

BEST PRACTICES • When judges make decisions about what is fair use, they give major consideration to what people actually practicing in the field think is fair use, or what their best practices are. Best Practices • Video-makers are best suited to figure out what is fair use in our field, because we are both copyright owners and creators who want to use copyrighted material

Code of Best Practices in Online Video

Category 1: Using copyrighted material as the object of a social, political or cultural critique From Current’s Target Women

Category 2: Using copyrighted material for illustration or example Evolution of Dance

Category 3: Capturing copyrighted material incidentally or accidentally (Incidental Use) Let’s Go Crazy

Category 4: Reproducing, reposting or quoting in order to memorialize, preserve, or rescue an experience, an event or a cultural phenomenon. Hurricane Katrina Fundraising Telethon

Category 5: Copying, reposting and recirculating a work or part of a work for purposes of launching a discussion Feminism by Whirlpool on Feministing

Category 6: Quoting in order to recombine elements to make a new work that depends for its meaning on (often unlikely) relationships between the elements Buffy vs Edward--Twilight Remixed by Rebellious Pixels

Fair Use and Music: It’s Tricky RIP Michael Jackson (Tribute)

COMMON FAIR USE MYTHS * If I’m not making money off it, it’s fair use * If I AM making money off it (or trying to), it’s NOT fair use * Fair use can’t be entertaining * If I try to license material, I’ve given up my chance to claim fair use

FAIR USE AND COPYRIGHT Remix Culture Video

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