May 22, 2007
A Professor Pokes Fun at Copyright
Copyright law, a constant thorn in the sides of scholars and researchers, is generating a lot of public discussion this week, thanks in part to a new 10-minute video that parodies the law. "A Fair(y) Use Tale" has been downloaded from YouTube about 145,000 times since it was posted online Friday. The video uses 400 cuts from 27 different Disney films to mock copyright law as overly protective of the interests of copyright owners — Disney among them.
Eric Faden, an assistant professor of English and film studies at Bucknell University, who produced the video with help from seven of his students, said it took eight months to make. "The most important thing is that it's getting people to talk about these issues" of copyright and fair use, Mr. Faden said today. Worried that Disney may sue him for copyright infringement, Mr. Faden has retained Stanford University law professors.
Mr. Faden garnered a lot of attention about five years ago when he bought an old movie theater near the Bucknell campus. A nonprofit group now owns the theater, called the Campus, and the university provides money to keep it running. —Andrea L. Foster
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Very entertaining presentation of the basic elements of copyright law and fair use. A must see for graduate students and writers. Two Big Toes Up!
— Colonel Mike Cramer, USA-Ret May 23, 09:15 AM #
The opening section is AWFUL, and how disappointing to come from an English professor, at that. (It should be “nor” not “or” , but that’s the least of its problems).Faden’s image choices state that “that STUPID law” is “NOT FAIR” because only the copyright holders (the CREATOR, usually) can say how their work may be used, then uses the evil, gluttonous, greedy Ursula as the stand-in for struggling artists and writers everywhere. I’m no fan of the Evil Empire (everyone knows the Lion King is based on Jungle Emperor, without authorization) but just as the first Amendment protects racist speech we’d all rather not hear, so does copyright law benefit big corporations, even as it protects those struggling artists and writers everywhere else. And why shouldn’t Walt Disney’s heirs (and stockholders) benefit from his creative legacy?The copyright holder is the CREATOR (sometimes not, it’s true- ABOLISH “work for hire”) after all, and SHOULD own what he creates.(c 2007, R. Martin) Let’s all raid everything Faden ever wrote and disseminate it everywhere without paying him- that’s what he advocates. right? -just as everyone steals music off the internet and bootlegs software. For that matter, if Mozart’s works are public domain, why should we pay the musicians who play them? Everything should be free for everybody.
— R. Martin May 23, 11:17 AM #
Excellent work! Disney is fair game concerning this issue. Although the spirit of copyright is to protect the ownership and livelihood of a work’s creator, the reality is that it often serves to protect the copyright owner’s (often times not the creator) right to make money off an idea that was not theirs to begin with.
In a world where a French company can buy water rights in China to sell a village water from its own water table, my fear is that we will one day live in a world were nothing is public domain and legal access to anything is only available to those with money.
— K. Leach May 23, 12:55 PM #
R. Martin, your tedious strawman attacks and hyperbole are getting tiresome. One can criticize what copyright has become – a practically limitless monopoly on created works – without advocating for the complete abolition of the basic concept. It can (and is and should) be argued that today’s copyright laws, particularly the length of time that copyright lasts, are a far cry from both what the founders intended and what is good for society as a whole. Let’s never forget that copyright is a deal between the general public and creators; it should be a balance between the interests of both of those parties. The current system is woefully and dramatically out of balance in favor of the copyright holders. The copyright holders and our legislators have effectively eliminated the public domain and that is a terrible loss for us as a society and a culture. As Lessig persuasively argues, the Internet and computer technology are enabling copyright holders even more control over their works and we should be making decisions about copyright and how it is controlled and enforced rather than naively allowing the market to make the decision for us.
— Kevin Guidry May 23, 01:16 PM #
“The internet and computer technology are enabling copyright holders even more control over their works”?!!! And this after the example of a film made entirely of clips swiped with digital technology.Sweet personal attack, Kevin Guidry, but GET REAL. You’re obviously not a creator.
— R. Martin May 23, 07:13 PM #
R. Martin wrote: “Let’s all raid everything Faden ever wrote and disseminate it everywhere without paying him- that’s what he advocates. right?”
R. Martin is confusing fair use with piracy. This film isn’t advocating taking entire works in their whole and disseminating them—that’s piracy. The film’s main point appears to be explaining copyright and fair use while simultaneously demonstrating these principles using fair use. The film very rightly provides a critical commentary on Disney because they have benefited enormously from works in the public domain while simultaneously closing the public domain door behind them and perpetuating their copyright as long as possible. Does Martin think Disney was the ORIGINAL creators of Aladdin, Beauty and The Beast, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, or The Hunchback of Notre Dame? No, these were all DERIVATIVE works that adopted and adapted the work of earlier creators whose works either fell into the public domain or were public domain de facto. Even Disney’s very early film Steamboat Willy was a sly derivation on an earlier work by Buster Keaton—Steamboat Bill Jr. Faden has similarly made a derivative work by transforming earlier works except unlike Disney which was protected from litigation by the public domain he has risked making a film about the vagaries of fair use by pushing the very boundaries of fair use.
— j. coleman May 25, 10:25 AM #
The film clearly states that copyright law is “stupid” and “not fair’ and implies all copyright holders are greedy.
Since I pointed out the Lion King is swiped from Kimba the white lion I hardly think Disney invented Aladdin, et al. That’s just insulting, Coleman. Since teachers, reviewers and parodists are allowed to use the bits that have been used, I doubt Disney will sue- and if they do, I doubt they’d win. Nonetheless, the film paints copyright law as stupid and harmful. If you’d like to make a version of Cinderella (as did Rodgers and Hammerstein and a hundred others) or Aladdin or Beauty and the Beast or anything else on that list- go right ahead. They are indeed in the public domain and you can create YOUR version of them- you just can’t use Disney’s designs, music, etc., i.e, the EXPRESSION of the idea.Shelley Duvall did a marvellous set of Fairy Tales a number of years ago- Sleeping Beauty with Christopher Reeve and Bernadette Peters comes to mind- with nary a word from Disney.Lou Bunin created a great stop-motion “alice in Wonderland’ the same year Disney did- and while they hassled the labs that processed the film (as i’ve said, I’m no fan of Disney) they could not legally stop either the production or its distribution.Look it up- it’s an excellent film. Meanwhile,
Guidry’s comment that the internet and computer technology allows copyright holders more control of their work is ridiculous beyond belief. Anyone who teaches at a college knows that thanks to napster technology (lawsuits notwithstanding) there is a pervasive student culture of theft of music, among other things (as well as sloppy research, attribution and plagiarism problems, but that’s another issue.)His comment about naively allowing the market to make copyright decisions for us harms his argument, not helps it- students believe since the technology makes it easy, then theft of intellectual property should be legal.If we listened to market forces, nobody would have copyright.
— R. Martin May 25, 05:24 PM #
Adding to my response to Coleman’s very silly notion that Disney “benefited enormously from works in the public domain while simutaneously closing the public domain door behind them”- go ahead make another “Hercules” movie; there’s got be one in production somewhere, perfectly legal as it is- an instance where the public benefited from copyright comes to mind. Douglas Fairbanks’ 1922 Robin Hood film is in fact titled, “Douglas Fairbanks in Robin hood’- that’s what all the publicity for the film called it- because Fairbanks knew that anyone else could make their own version of Robin Hood to capitalize on his production.When Warners made THEIR version of Robin Hood; the talkie with Errol Flynn, they didn’t wish to pay Fairbanks for the rights to his story and so didn’t use any of the plot elements from that film (unlike Stewart Granger’s scene for scene remake of the Selznick/Colman “Prisoner of Zenda”, wherein he had to pay Selznick a hefty fee). As a result an entirely new plotline/story was developed, and we have the 1937 technicolor classic to stand beside the 1922 silent one.Both used public domain charcters and incidents and both came up with great material. The fact that Disney made an animated version didn’t prevent the Kevin Costner (inferior to the Flynn, which they made fun of in their press release material) or Patrick Bergin (supposedly put into production to capitalize on the Costner version) versions from getting made, either. So how does Disney close the public domain door?
— R. Martin May 25, 06:00 PM #
R. Martin wrote: “So how does Disney close the public domain door?”
Wow . . . this little film has certainly got R. Martin in a snit. That’s pretty hilarious just in its own right.
Ok, Martin since you had a difficult time distinguishing between piracy and fair use, I’ll try to calmly answer the question as simply as I can. You see, Disney borrows heavily from the public domain. Indeed, they should . . . that’s why the public domain exists—to allow creators to borrow, modify, and extend earlier works. Yet, given Disney’s aggressive pursuit of continually extended copyright terms, their own works never fall into the public domain. So, they take but they don’t give back. I call that closing the door behind you.
Now, of course, Disney is not the only culprit here—merely an easy target. Indeed, given the dramatic change of the 1976 Copyright Act from an “opt in” to an “opt out” policy (meaning you no longer have to specifically seek out to copyright something, copyright becomes automatic to any new expression) plus the continued extension of copyright terms, then effectively the public domain ends for films in (if my math is correct) 1923.
R. Martin is absolutely correct that we can continue to make derivative works of things already in the public domain. However, given the extraordinary proliferation of media content since 1923, it might be nice to be able to use that material someday. Let’s face it, if current copyright law existed 100-300 years ago, some of the works R. Martin sites might not ever have been made precisely because it might have been too difficult, costly, risky or inconvenient to get the copyright holder’s permission.
The film calling copyright law “stupid” or “unfair” doesn’t bother me that much . . . there’s a lot of stupid or unfair laws but we still need them. All laws can’t be fair to all people. For me, the film seems playful and certainly the film doesn’t imply all copyright holders are greedy (it seems targeted pretty directly at Disney). Moreover, the film doesn’t call for the abolishment of copyright law. To me, the film seems more interested in presenting—in an astonishingly short period of time—the complexity of copyright law and its interplay with the public domain, and fair use. Given the concentration of media ownership and the extension of copyright terms, I think any film that tries to balance the playing field by discussing the importance of the public domain and fair use (which most copyright holders wouldn’t like anyone to know about) is a good thing.
— j. coleman May 26, 12:25 PM #
No difficulty distinguishing between piracy and fair use here, coleman, though I will point out that the film is less an example of a new work than an example of “sampling’- taking bits and pieces of old works (such as Vanilla Ice’s rip-off of David Bowie and Queen- steal few enough bars and you can get away with it) to string together a hodgepodge. Your 1923 date makes no sense- plenty of films are in the public domain and available in multiple versions at Walmarts and Targets everywhere from multiple VHS/DVD distributors for pennies.
I still say that the message of the film is that copyright is unfair to the non-copyright holder, which I just think is false. The old 14 year rule – which people are arguing for on Lessig’s site dedicated to Mark Helprin’s NYTimes piece- was blatantly unfair- copyright should extend beyond the creator’s life. Let’s say you write a bestselling novel at 25 and promptly get killed in a car crash- your spouse and 2 year old child need thte income that book will provide them for the next 20 years.(Yes, I know it’s actually 70). Also, many writers and artists create works that go nowhere for years- until a “hit” suddenly adds value to their old work. All of Sabatini’s early work was re-issued to much financial success ( I don’t know the copyright/royalty situation) after his big hit with “Scaramouche” in the twenties. I hope he profited from it.It’s also completely false that big money interests are only interested in preserving copyright: plenty of pressure is put on congress to work against it- just look at the “Orphan works” provision large publishers are pushing for- make a cursory attempt to find the copyright holder, fail, claim it’s an “orphan” and exploit it all you want. Again, how many people on this message baord actually write, compose, paint, sculpt or oherwise create their own work? Copyright is for YOUR protection.Glad you think my concern/involvement in creator’s rights is so hilarious. What’s YOUR interest that you keep posting responses yourself?
— R. Martin May 27, 08:24 AM #
By the way, though the 1976 law says you own the copyright as soon as you create something, you can hardly “opt out”- you still need to REGISTER the work to derive most of the legal benefits from your ownership- punitive damages against an infringer and such- I’m not an attorney- and certainly you need to put the copyright symbol and your claim somewhere on the published work.Still wondering where yor interest lies. By all means, try to remain calm.
— R. Martin May 27, 08:36 AM #
A few points as I need to move on with my life . . .
1. If you want to throw out things that sample as not counting as a new work then I guess we should ax all rap music, the entire dada movement, and Duchamp’s The Fountain (urinal). There’s a long precedent for sampling . . . we may not like it but in an age of digital reproduction it’s here to stay.
2. I’m sorry the 1923 public domain date makes no sense to you but welcome to the world of copyright law. Sad as I am to report, the 1923 date is, in fact, CORRECT. Most everything pre-1923 is public domain. The vast majority of things copyrighted after 1923 are still under copyright. Some material became public domain in 1968 if the owner didn’t renew the copyright. Percentage-wise, however, MOST works remain under copyright. Just because Target carries multiple VHS or DVD copies of a film does not mean something is public domain. It might but it’s more likely the case that the copyright owner licensed different versions to different DVD or VHS distributors. Remember that film “restorations” or “directors cuts” count as new works . . . thus a studio might have a DVD of a restored copy but the VHS of the non-restored version is licensed to a third party. A studio’s film library remains its most valuable asset and they are not going to let that fall into the public domain without a fight to the death.
3. Your point on the 25-year-old author tragically struck down in the prime of his creative life is a poignant one and I wholeheartedly support creators’ rights to benefit from their work’s copyright for—as the constitution indicates—a LIMITED time. That’s copyright’s purpose: to create a temporary monopoly so creators have an incentive to make new works and financially benefit from them. Yet, if you consider what makes money TODAY, you’ll see very few individual creators hold the copyright to their work (many individual creators do retain the rights to works that don’t make money). Indeed, in an age of corporate media consolidation, most creators interested in profiting from their work ASSIGN their rights to a publisher or distributor. It’s the quid pro quo for making money: you created a work, we will distribute it, make money, and share that money with you (after some creative accounting), but you must assign your rights to us before we distribute it. Yes, some very established authors can retain their copyright but for the vast majority of new works that make money, the author surrenders the copyright. This control of rights is especially crucial for big media today because they’ve discovered that properties can be sold multiple times across multiple platforms. How many of us have seen a movie in a theatre, then bought the VHS, then bought the DVD, and will probably buy the HD-DVD?
So, in your example, the reality is likely that if a young author wrote a bestselling novel, then the copyright is held by a publisher and NOT the author. In his case, LIFE INSURANCE is a much more prudent option for financially caring for his widow and now father-less child. I totally support your view of copyright protecting individual creators but I don’t think copyright law largely functions in that capacity anymore. I wish it did.
4. My final point: this little 10 minute film has generated way more than 10 minutes of really great debate and discussion. If nothing else, that’s an amazing and productive accomplishment.
— j. coleman May 31, 10:26 AM #
Well Mr. Coleman, thank you for the more reasonable tone in your last response. We do disagree about the implications of the law (which is always open to litigation and interpretation) however.
I do think you are wrong on a number of assumptions.
Firstly,and this is purely personal opinion, as my favorite composers are Dvorak, Sibelius, Gershwin and Lennon/McCartney, I can’t stand rap “music.” I have no problem with collage or parody, though, but different types of art are judged by different criteria. I like Duchamp’s essay about art not being a value judgement, that art is what the artist says it is, but that there is good art and bad art. That being said, I think his “fountain” is bad art. ( I’m no fan of Cy Twombly or Robert Ryman, either). I don’t think that has anything to do with copyright, however, since “fountain” was sold as a physical piece of art, not a copyrightable reproduction, and he could hardly sue anybody else for selling a urinal- the only thing he contributed to it was his signature, and anybody else doing it ( despite that the idea is no longer original) could only contribute their signature as well.Yes, sadly, in the age of digital reproduction sampling is here to stay. This is why it’s such an issue in copyright law.
My wife used to work in (print) production at a video company that sold their product through Walmart, among other places. They were the largest distributor in Manhattan/the USA, sold licensed Richard Simmons and Cindy Crawford exercise videos, as well as many recent film releases. FIFTY PERCENT of their catalogue (hundreds of films a year) was public domain.(They also were sued all the time by Disney- they courted it frankly, by putting out cartoon cover art with similar character design, but they were also sued for ridiculuous things like using the color blue for backgrounds (yes, disney claimed a copyright on “Disney” blue) and using white clamshell boxes. Of course, those silly things may have been put in there to be thrown out as a negotiating ploy.) I know a lot of people who’ve worked for/ come against Disney, so I well know why people hate them and why they’re such a target here. Again, I have no love for them. Two words: Lion King) Anyway, I think you’re just wrong about public domain films.
I also believe you’re wrong here….
Most authors retain the copyright to their work. This is how a writer (or music group) can take their whole back catalogue with them when they switch publishers (labels).ASSIGNING publication rights doesn’t mean you assign the whole copyright, or relinquish it.The very point of copyright is it gives you the right to assign different rights (1st north American rights, serial rights, secondary rights) to different people for limited amounts of time. Obviously, you COULD sell your copyright, but I do believe all authors retain it.(No one knows when they create something how much money it’s going to make.) This is how they can sell the paperback rights, for instance, to a different publisher than the hardcover rights.When I did paintings for book jackets I sold the 1st reproduction rights ONLY, the original art (and all other rights- the COPYRIGHT, was retained by me.) If I did a hardback book and the publisher had the paperback rights as well, they would offer me more money to include the paperback rights to the artwork at the same time the hardback was commisssioned, though it was less than the the total of the hardback and paperback fees combined. Most artists took it because the publisher commissioned new art for the paperback anyway, so it wasn’t as if they were going to come back to you for the same art 2 years later for more money.I hope this makes sense. Except in advertising,(or “Work for hire” situations- that’s another issue) where the money was better, no artist I know sold ALL rights ( called a “buyout” ) to their artwork, even though it was commissioned by a specific client for a specific purpose. This is how “stock” houses sprang up ( artists trying to exploit their rights to their pre-existing art) and screwed up the commercial art industry, since artists found themselves competing with art (often their own) that they licensed to a stock house and that was cheaper to purchase (secondary rights) than the cost of commissioning a new piece.
ANYWAY....Back to writers, look at the copyright page in any book, it is always the author (or a company name that’s a legal entity of the author) who holds the copyright.(Except in cases of licensed works such as Star Wars novels- and there. even though he’s now a rich corporation- the rights are ultimately owned by the original creator, George Lucas). I’ve been (am) both an artist and a writer,( and a college professor, and a tinker, and a tailor…) and I’m so concerned about these issues because I hold my copyrights. The last copyright law was pushed by the late congressman Sonny Bono (“I got you babe”) and he wasn’t concerned about making a record label money, except as an offshoot of selling his (or others’ covers) of his songs. As writer he, NOT the publisher, was the copyright holder. I could give hundreds of other examples but I hope its clear now- “assigning” the rights doesn’t give the publisher the actual copyright.
I hope we’re not the only two people concerned about this anymore.
Have a nice life.
— R. Martin Jun 1, 10:07 AM #
I should also point out that even in the case of licensed books- Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel Comics, etc., the author of the work, even based as it is on a corporation’s characters, gets royalties on the sales ( the author who adapted “E.T” as a book was a literary darling but made all his money with that adaptation), so there must be some rights still retained by the author of a “Star Wars’ juvenile or a Spiderman graphic novel.
— R. Martin Jun 1, 10:21 AM #