I need permission from Carly Simon to put a video on YouTube I shot on a BlackBerry!!

[Cameron Poole]

I do see your well presented point from the YouTube perspective, it doesn't make it any less of a bummer though! Maybe I'm being over defensive, but the rigid and sobering formality of many of the comments has made me feel like a bit of a criminal when I set out to do something to make people smile.

I agree with copyright but in this case it just seems to have gone too far and there is no such thing as justice, only law... I have technically abused it however I want to dress it up and that to me, from a human and personal point of view is wrong, but a human and personal point of view doesn't stand up.

I know I can't change the way it is,

[Chris Hurd]

Try looking at it from another point of view. How would you feel if somebody else did this with your own material?

[Predrag Vasic]

Perhaps you have spend a bit too much time in Thailand, where (to my understanding) neither is the law too consistent and reasonable, nor is the enforcement of it any consistent at all.

Coming originally from a place not much different than that (with the respect to laws, their logic, enforcement, and especially corruption), I had a very lax attitude towards them. Having lived in the developed world for the past 20 years, where laws generally make sense and reflect the state of civilisation, as well as enforcement is consistent and meaningful (plus lack of corruption), I have learned to respect situations such as copyright, even in seemingly extreme situations (like posting a cellphone video on YouTube).

Recently, my daughter (10) had a performance at her school. I wanted to post the clip on YouTube (private link) so that her grandfather can watch it overseas. Before doing that, I looked up the copyright status of the work she had performed (it was Bach, in public domain, so I was OK). Most people don't even think of this, but it is real.

Perhaps if cases like yours become more common in America, and people begin to raise their voices about the extreme enforcement of copyright laws, someone might draft some federal legislation that might broaden that news gathering exception just ever so slightly, so that we could squeeze our little home videos through that little loophole.

[Predrag Vasic]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

Try looking at it from another point of view. How would you feel if somebody else did this with your own material?

I believe that is exactly his point; if he were an artist, supporting himself by writing and recording music, and his track ended up on a home video, shared on YouTube, he wouldn't mind, unless somebody was making inordinate amount of money from that video.

[Simon Wood]

Originally Posted by Predrag Vasic

As mentioned before, there is only one, very narrowly defined category, that is exempt from copyright clearance, and that is news gathering. The only way such use is allowed is when copyrighted content (music soundtrack, video, spoken or printed text) is incidental to the primary story of the news item

OK. I was not clear on that, and what you've said makes a lot of common sense to me. However I would have thought that documentary programs should also have been exempt (assuming that the copyrighted content is incidental to the story as with news stories). A good deal of documentaries use newsreel footage as it is, and I find good documentaries are a form of news gathering in a broader context. Does anyone here agree with that?

Sorry to keep dragging this away from the Carly Simon topic, but while we're at it: what about investigative documentaries, in the vein of Michael Moore style stuff where the companies being 'investigated' or whatever would never allow their material to be used, and yet you see it?

At any rate a lot of 'fringe' news stories these days suffer from the blurred backgrounds (usually entertainment related news stories - I know its not really news, but the point is that this phenomenon seems to be growing and I reckon its only going to go one way...).

[Seth Bloombaum]

Originally Posted by Predrag Vasic

...As mentioned before, there is only one, very narrowly defined category, that is exempt from copyright clearance, and that is news gathering...

Two more exempt categories, under Fair Use (Fair Dealing), also interpreted narrowly: Education (specifically, performance in the classroom for educational purposes, and scholarly research), and Parody (that comments on the original work). The Parody exemption is in the USA only, as I understand it.

News reporting is a little broader as well, to include criticism and review.

Wikipedia's Fair Use page is some of the clearest writing I've seen on the often-tangled subject. Note that copyright exemption under Fair Use is not an international agreement, it's only in a few countries!

[Simon Wood]

Originally Posted by Predrag Vasic

I'm not sure you clearly understand the point of copyright.

I fully understand the point of copyright; what I'm saying is that in terms of news gathering and documentary work there ought to be a semblance of common sense, as stated above, when the items in question are incidental, and have no consequence to the material filmed.

[Jon Fairhurst]

When I've used copyrighted temp music, I post those pieces on Vimeo with a password and only share it with the people I'm working with. This is similar to using temp music in a studio. It only goes public when I've written, performed, and include my own music for the piece.

I think there's an interesting line between filming MY wedding where a DJ might play anything and a documentary about weddings. For MY wedding, I feel that the artist who's work crept in cannot steal the event any more than I can steal their music. If I'm not selling it and the artist's work is secondary and in the background, I'd like to have the rights to share MY wedding video freely. The artist's work adds little or no value and my wedding video doesn't reduce the artist's potential income.

On the other hand, a documentary about weddings to be aired on a cable channel is a professional, money making venture. The producer could film a wide variety of wedding scenes for the production. In other words, the presence of an artist's music doesn't prevent the producer from making a doc about weddings in general.

Artists' works shouldn't be stolen. But the presence of artists' works shouldn't steal the world away from the documentary filmmaker either.

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Predrag Vasic

I believe that is exactly his point; if he were an artist... he wouldn't mind...

Not all artists would agree with that point of view, though. That's why we have copyright.

For those artists who don't mind sharing their work freely for others to create derivative
works, there is Creative Commons -- that's the material that should be sourced for these
types of projects, instead of property protected by copyright.

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

...
I think there's an interesting line between filming MY wedding where a DJ might play anything and a documentary about weddings. For MY wedding, I feel that the artist who's work crept in cannot steal the event any more than I can steal their music. If I'm not selling it and the artist's work is secondary and in the background, I'd like to have the rights to share MY wedding video freely. The artist's work adds little or no value and my wedding video doesn't reduce the artist's potential income.
...

Share freely with friends, yes. Invite as many as you like over to your house to watch it with you or mail them a DVD if they're out of town. But posting to YouTube, etc, goes far beyond sharing with friends into the realm of publishing for the general public's consumption, while the wedding videographer who shot your wedding made the DVDand published it in the first place as a purely commercial product distributed to the public (albeit a small public).

[Richard Crowley]

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

I think there's an interesting line between filming MY wedding where a DJ might play anything and a documentary about weddings. For MY wedding, I feel that the artist who's work crept in cannot steal the event any more than I can steal their music. If I'm not selling it and the artist's work is secondary and in the background, I'd like to have the rights to share MY wedding video freely. The artist's work adds little or no value and my wedding video doesn't reduce the artist's potential income.

On the other hand, a documentary about weddings to be aired on a cable channel is a professional, money making venture. The producer could film a wide variety of wedding scenes for the production. In other words, the presence of an artist's music doesn't prevent the producer from making a doc about weddings in general.

But you neatly jumped right over the elephant in the room BETWEEN those two examples. Wedding videographers who shoot other people's weddings for profit. Copyright law (at least in the USA) expressly prohibits using even "incidental" or "background" music from the DJ at the reception(*). There are notable cases of major-league cine and TV productions that never saw the audience (or were withdrawn from circulation) all because of inability to negotiate the rights to ambient background music.

(*)There is a "Fair use" case for LEGITIMATE news coverage.

[David W. Jones]

Something to remember when using music that is now public domain such a Bach, is the song may indeed be in the public domain, but the particular recording of it by Symphony Orchestra X is likely under copyright.

[Jon Fairhurst]

Originally Posted by Richard Crowley

But you neatly jumped right over the elephant in the room BETWEEN those two examples.

You bet I did. I'm not a copyright lawyer. ;)

[Predrag Vasic]

Originally Posted by David W. Jones

Something to remember when using music that is now public domain such a Bach, is the song may indeed be in the public domain, but the particular recording of it by Symphony Orchestra X is likely under copyright.

Luckily, in my case, that Bach piece was performed live by my 10-year old daughter (accompanied on the piano by my wife). No mechanical royalties either...

[Sam Mallery]

YouTube also does this thing where instead of pulling your video off, they add a banner advertisement at the bottom of your video for the song that you used. The idea being that if the viewer likes the song, they can click on the ad and purchase the download. It's good for the musician, good for YouTube, and sort of good for the video maker - but I hate banner ads.

I think Google did this for that famous wedding ceremony video, where the wedding party dances down the aisle.

And as far as crazy copyright law is concerned, how about the recent case of the tattoo artist whose lawsuit is keeping The Hangover II from being released? A character in the film wakes up with an exact reproduction of Mike Tyson's tattoo on his face. The artist is claiming a copyright on the design and wants royalties.

I understand why people get upset about documentary film making being burdened, but the simple fact is that if you're making an original production, it's up to you to jump over all of the hurdles involved with properly making the piece. If you don't follow the rules, you could end up making something that can never be shown. It's one of the many things that makes this craft a difficult one. We all have to creatively work within these limitations. You kind of need to assume that just about everything has a copyright - even a tattoo - and work from there. It's a pain, but at the end of the day your work will likely be more original because of the extra effort you need to put into it.