Posted on February 18, 2012 in Legal & Copyright | 1 Comment
Our system of law doesn’t acknowledge the derivative nature of creativity. Instead, ideas are regarded as property, as unique and original lots with distinct boundaries. But ideas aren’t so tidy. They’re layered, they’re interwoven, they’re tangled. And when the system conflicts with the reality… the system starts to fail.
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Posted on January 18, 2012 in Featured, Internet, Legal & Copyright | 6 Comments
Now that Occupy Wall Street is dead the interwebs are abuzz with a new protest meme denouncing SOPA. This should not be confused with their decades long protest against soap.
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Posted on October 21, 2011 in Contracts and Law, Legal & Copyright | 1 Comment
James Erwin is a fledgling author who posted a series of short stories in Reddit’s forums about what would happen if U.S. Marines traveled back in time to fight the Roman Empire. Warner Bros. took notice and moved to buy the movie rights. But Reddit’s user agreement may turn his dream into a intellectual property nightmare.
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Posted on August 25, 2011 in Contracts and Law, Legal & Copyright | 2 Comments
CGP Grey takes a look at the history of copyright law in his new video “Copyright: Forever Less One Day”.
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Posted on May 5, 2011 in Contracts and Law, Featured, Legal & Copyright | No Comments
What’s difference between an idea an the expression of an idea? What’s the difference between borrowing and stealing? What’s covered under Copyright and what’s not? If you want clear answers to those questions, hire a layer! If you want a basic understanding, keep reading.
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Posted on April 22, 2011 in Filmmaking 360, Legal & Copyright | No Comments
Felix Salmon gives us his take on the future of Intellectual Property rights and how it plays in the developing world.
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Posted on August 18, 2010 in Music | 1 Comment
Since American Graffiti, the modern film musical has been reinvented as a greatest hits collection of popular or cutting-edge genre music. But if a filmmaker wishes to use recordings of popular songs, she must enter the byzantine world of music licensing.
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Posted on August 3, 2010 in Contracts and Law, Internet, Legal & Copyright | 1 Comment
Margaret Gould Stewart, YouTube’s head of user experience, talks about how the ubiquitous video site works with copyright holders and creators to foster (at the best of times) a creative ecosystem where everybody wins.
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Posted on April 14, 2010 in Contracts and Law, Legal & Copyright, Marketing | 1 Comment
Although film is an expressive art form, it is also an increasingly international and highly commercial business. As a result, filmmakers should be very selective regarding choices to use a third party’s property—copyrighted works, trademarks, readily identified individual names or corporate names—without express permission. Permission is not always difficult to come by. Without the express permission, the errors and omissions insurance may be drafted to exclude any liability for the use of such content, and the lack of coverage may discourage distributors or exhibitors from buying or showing the work.
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Posted on January 17, 2010 in Legal & Copyright | 2 Comments
Mark Galsor and Jesse Saivar tackle the question of what’s legal when dealing with fictional characters from other movies.
…Q: My company is producing a film which has a character that is taken from another very well known film. This new story has absolutely nothing to do with the previously established film, is not [...]
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Posted on November 29, 2009 in Contracts and Law, Legal & Copyright | No Comments
By Jon M. Garon
Gallagher, Callahan & Gartrell, PC
Despite the short-term glut in the market, documentaries have become an increasingly important part of the film industry as well as tools of public discourse. Since documentaries only rarely receive national theatrical distribution, audiences do not treat nontheatrical distribution as an aesthetic judgment against the film. They expect [...]
Posted on January 9, 2009 in Filmmaking 360 | No Comments
The sixth lecture in Evan Korth’s NYU Computers and Society course featured Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford University. His topic, the subject of his recent book, was “Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy.”
The content industry has convinced industry in general that extremism in copyright regulation is good for business and economic [...]
Posted on September 8, 2008 in Music | No Comments
By Jon M. Garon
Gallagher, Callahan & Gartrell, PC
This is part of a series of book excerpts from Independent Filmmaking, The Law & Business Guide for Financing, Shooting & Distributing Independent & Digital Films designed as an introduction to the many legal issues involved in the filmmaking process.
Music & Sound
For most modern films, music has [...]
Posted on August 24, 2008 in Contracts and Law | 1 Comment
From: Center for Social Media
Download full report (PDF)
INTRODUCTION
WHAT THIS IS
This document is a code of best practices that helps creators, online providers, copyright holders, and others interested in the making of online video interpret the copyright doctrine of fair use. Fair use is the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment under [...]
Posted on August 7, 2008 in Contracts and Law | 1 Comment
By Jon M. Garon
Gallagher, Callahan & Gartrell, PC
This is part of a series of book excerpts from Independent Filmmaking, The Law & Business Guide for Financing, Shooting & Distributing Independent & Digital Films designed as an introduction to the many legal issues involved in the filmmaking process.
To obtain the right to make a movie [...]
