Documentary Landscapes

Perhaps this blog is now obsolete (now wouldn't that be excellent!).  Or maybe blogging just doesn't work the way I hope it would (man, that would be a real shame!). I am growing afraid it might well be — at least the kind that comes from positive and strategic influence as opposed to spontaneous or reactionary disruption (that kind of change that always is constant).  So what is the next step? And why the bleep do I have to ask?

Film distribution is broken. Ask any producer who has ever felt that the amount they get for their work seems paltry compared to what others are making. For that matter, Peter Broderick has been saying this for years at SPAA Fringe.

There are lots of online film distribution platforms duking it out in the nascent VoD space. From the behemoths like iTunes and Amazon Instant to YouTube and Vimeo, to any number of small players trying to carve out a spot in the world. Andy Green’s Distrify is one of the ones actually making it work.

Last year, a former student contacted me to ask if her news outlet, a network affiliate, could use a video clip from a Comedy Central show to introduce a segment about election-year campaign spending.  The purpose of the segment was to comment on the show’s many attempts to raise awareness of the rules that govern such spending.

And, last month, a former student contacted me to ask if his news outlet, an online startup with a hyperlocal focus, could embed a federal government report on the outlet’s website. The purpose of the embedding was to enable readers to review for themselves the evidence for a claim and then draw their own conclusions.

The journalists were worried about copyright infringements, and they wondered if the “fair use” doctrine would protect them. (It allows people in limited circumstances to use copyrighted works without permission or payment.) In the first case, I told the journalist that she would be protected because of how and why she used the work, and in the second case, I told the journalist that the fair use doctrine was irrelevant because works prepared by the federal government generally are not copyrightable.

I have these talks pretty often with clients and former students (note to self: do a better job of teaching copyright law), and the reason is straightforward: Many public communicators, including journalists, struggle to apply the fair use doctrine in their daily work. They seek legal counsel, and sometimes they ask what other journalists would do in the same or similar circumstances.

Enter: the “Set of Principles in Fair Use for Journalism,” released Friday at a TEDx event at the Poynter Institute. It was prepared by the Center for Social Media and the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University, with support from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.