Comments

winrockpost wrote on 2/12/2006, 3:21 PM
Hmmmmm,,,You are serious right . I would maybe have the rules set up so they can't use copyrighted materials, problem solved !
Chienworks wrote on 2/12/2006, 3:22 PM
What you give or don't give to the winner isn't the issue at all. The issue was that the copyrighted material was used. Giving a gift certificate instead of cash doesn't make it any less an offense. I think the best solution is to disqualify any entries that use copyrighted material and don't even show them. Tell the students up front about this rule. It will encourage them to be more creative.
Coursedesign wrote on 2/12/2006, 3:36 PM
Yes, yes. Copyright affects also non-profit use.

There are CERTAIN fair use exclusions related to for example accredited schools for internal use, but here the best way is no way!

rs170a wrote on 2/12/2006, 5:50 PM
I just googled "school film festival rules" and came across the following from Hotshots.

Mike


What music can I use in my submission?

Answer: It is best to get the necessary rights/licensing for any and all music used in your film, use royalty free music from a source like Shockwave-Sound.com (also search for Royalty Free Music online) or use original music. As a student you may choose to use copyrighted music for "Educational Use". Hot Shots is not responsible for any music used without the expressed written consent of the artist(s).

Submission with copyrighted music will be accepted but you increase your chances of having your film rebroadcast or distributed if the soundtrack is royalty free. Maybe there is a band or musician in your school that is looking for exposure that you can do the score for your film.
Patryk Rebisz wrote on 2/12/2006, 5:59 PM
All that legal mumbo jumbo makes all of us more uptight and thus less creative.

It's school for God's sake! Those peeps are suppose to take the idea and run with it without worrying about corporate america trying to make money on their copyright rights...
jrazz wrote on 2/12/2006, 6:18 PM
Those peeps are suppose to take the idea and run with it without worrying about corporate america trying to make money on their copyright rights...

But how does that prepare them for the "real world"? If you don't teach them from the beginning the laws, rules, etc., and how to abide by them, then they will be less inclined to follow them later on when they are out of school and trying to make a living... using other people's material.

j razz
Coursedesign wrote on 2/12/2006, 6:20 PM
Well said!

There are even some who think this has already happened...

Patryk Rebisz wrote on 2/12/2006, 6:29 PM
On one hand yes, but... Art isn't about following the rules.
Jay Gladwell wrote on 2/12/2006, 6:34 PM

Patryk, how would you feel if someone else were using one your works? Even winning prize money?


jrazz wrote on 2/12/2006, 6:47 PM
Patryk, not trying to single you out, really, but art isn't about breaking the law either. I don't agree with how hard it is to get permission to use copyrighted material, but I sure wouldn't expect to get it for free when someone else invested a lot of hard work and time into producing/making it at their own expense.

j razz
Chienworks wrote on 2/12/2006, 6:53 PM
Besides that, art students of all people are supposed to be learning how to be creative, not learning how to plagiarize.
Coursedesign wrote on 2/12/2006, 7:00 PM
Art and music don't have to follow the rules, I couldn't agree more. I can think of at least one composer (Povel Ramel) who showed great music talent as a child, so he was sent to study at a conservatory.

He totally hated the rigidity of formal design, so he dropped out and vowed to write a successful song that broke every single rule he had learned.

He did fulfill his vow, his song sounds slightly odd but absolutely positively great.

And his career? Well, he's been selling records and done concerts for 60 years so far, still going strong.

The social world, on the other hand, becomes pretty unbearable if each person chooses what rules to follow. We do need to have some basic agreements for things to flow smoothly, and most cultures (with or without the 10 Commandments or equivalent) agree that we shouldn't murder each other when we get angry, and we shouldn't steal from another just because he or she has what we want.

Because "our village" has gone from being tens or hundreds of people to many millions in a country and about 6 billion worldwide, with a huge growth in the number of new, never seen before, activities we can pursue, it is important that we either understand the principles of morality and ethics (which very few people master), or know enough about the written rules (a.k.a. laws) in the society where we live.

Some of it we can extrapolate, so for example I don't have to know all the 42,500 traffic rules in Los Angeles to drive here without getting a ticket.

But there will always be people who think that if it's easy, it must be OK.

Sometimes they're even right.

Spot|DSE wrote on 2/12/2006, 7:12 PM
Course, I think that your post is one of the most thoughtful, albeit simple, posts I've read in a long while.

Patryk, as a professional artist, I agree. Art is not about following rules.
It's also not about creating your work on the backs of others without compensating them for it.

I recalled a phrase the other day handed to me from an old manager...
"We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours." (John of Salibury/1159 A.D.)

Nothing wrong with standing on the shoulders of giants, so long as they permit you to do so. In this case, they don't.
Patryk Rebisz wrote on 2/12/2006, 7:13 PM
Guys, come on noone is talking about taking someone work and just changing the name of the creator. Obviously that's stealing. Still taking a piece of something and incorporating that into your own work -- even without the permission of the owner and definatly when we are talking about school level... i think that shouldn't be restricted. SO what if the kid wins an award and some money? It's not like he's gonna now duplicate the CD/DVD and start making millions by selling it. If he does he's gonna be by then part of corporate america and some other part of that corporate america is gonna get him with a lawsuit. Untill then the creative juices should be flowing.
dibbkd wrote on 2/12/2006, 7:31 PM
Patryk, I understand where you are coming from, and you are probably right, the kids could use a bunch of pop songs and TV or movie clips in their projects and nobody would ever care.

But let's say someone does care, let's say the local media picks up on the project because it's really cool, airs it, and then Nike and Madonna (for example) see their work being portrayed in a way they don't agree with, or even if they do think it's fine, want to protect their assets.

So, maybe they don't sue the kid, but maybe the county school board for letting it happen.

(and in reality I doubt they would sue the schools because that could make them look bad, but hey, they could)

Anyway, I'm always amazed at how long the "is this copyright ok" threads get... and I'm just adding to this one I guess.

Bottom line: If it's not yours, you can't use it without permission.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 2/12/2006, 7:42 PM
if the kids want to use someone else's ideas then just get something that predates the 20's. Everything in the public domain there. Anyone can make a king kong movie, alice in wonderland, a story on the titanic or the life story of george washington. IF they REALLY want to do something based on more modern media then they can make a parody of "my humps" featuring bob cammel (who smokes cigar's) and a hippo.

but just taking someone else's work is wrong. The teacher would fail them if they copy/pasted their history report so they should be disqualified if they don't have copyright permission.

re: Klausky

Just do what vasst does for it's contests:

Rules:
1. All images in the final video must be copyright-cleared or property of submittee, or must
2. All audio must be copyright-cleared or property of submittee.
...
4. File may not be pornographic or vulgar in nature, and must conform to generally accepted guidelines for public broadcast.

ok DSE... waiting for your layers call on my direct plagerisum from vasst.com. ;)
Spot|DSE wrote on 2/12/2006, 8:00 PM
HappyFriar,
Rules, tables, and charts of information for the common good can't be copyrighted. :-)
So, no lawyers will come a-calling.
Bob Greaves wrote on 2/12/2006, 8:01 PM
Many public schools are getting into video editing. As such they are not as focused at first on making everything "commercially legal." The assignement has to be done in class this week. There is no time to hire a band or even create original music. These schools will often claim that the wroks created are for internal use and for the purposes of teaching the kids the basics of how to put it all together not for the purpose of making the resulting creations viable. They have no desire to turn it into a full blown project.

Under such circumstances two local school districts in my area make no bones about the fact that it is educational use and the students are told plainly that any other use of their "creations" outside of class would violate copyright law.

I personally have no objection to this and would not be the least bit bothered if they even used some of my creations. My daughter was in one such class where they created a short film about a princess being rescued. All of the music was taken from the CD collections of the students. They used miniDV cameras and even created a few sound effects and had to incorporate a few video effects as well. They put the entire film together in a matter of three days.

The goal was to learn how to mechanically get it done. If they wanted to create soemthing with legal value they would have to take the advanced class and begin to incorporate the strategic issues related to rules of law.
Spot|DSE wrote on 2/12/2006, 8:10 PM
The TEACH Act provides specifically for this use, provided it's for in-school, not broadcast over the internal school television network, nor copied to give to students. If it's a class project, that never leaves the classroom, then it's legal to use music taken from a commercial CD.
John_Cline wrote on 2/12/2006, 9:12 PM
I can't believe how many people on this (and many other) forums are trying desparately to find some way to justify stealing someone else's work to incorporate into their own. With the single exception Spot mentioned above, if you didn't create it from scratch or you didn't pay for the rights to use it, then you can't use it. PLAIN and SIMPLE.

John
rmack350 wrote on 2/12/2006, 10:00 PM
The original question was whether Klausky's school could give a cash award. I would think that it's not the festival's job to check that the filmaker has all the rights to media in the film.

Klausky doesn't say what kind of school this is. Grade school? College? Knowing this might help shape one's assumptions about the festival.

Here are some links to film festivals and what they have to say about entries:

http://www.humboldt.edu/~filmfest/
http://www.aafilmfest.org/filmmakers/

Here's a much bigger festival:
http://www.chicagofilmfestival.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/CIFFSite.woa/wa/pages/FilmFestival

Chicago includes these lines on their entry form:

5. Entrant confirms and warrants required legal authority to submit the entry into the Festival and to use all music, images and content in the entry.
6. Entrant will allow usage of clips from the entry for promotional use on television, radio, in print, and at live Festival events.

The other two don't mention rights but do include the line about allowing usage of clips for festival promotion.

It seems to me that college level festivals that don't involve distribution just aren't too concerned about policing the entrants.

Rob Mack


farss wrote on 2/13/2006, 5:12 AM
After what I heard today this stuff seems like a drop in the ocean. The deed is being done by big names with big budgets, they know what they're doing, they admit it's wrong and it just goes into the "so what" basket. Between the various players they're serious stakeholders in the copyright, patent and trademark stakes.
Seems to me the industry itself is rife with breaches but so long as most of it has proper clearance and gets paid for the bits that get swept under the rug no one complains about because they all belong to the same club.
Sorry if this is getting way off the already off topic topic but as I'm sitting here typing I'm getting more riled about this. I'm not talking about knocking back some wedding vid even though someone else will do it anyway. I'm talking about the big boys clubs where it seems OK to bend the rules and bend them a lot and even if you bend them way too far all you get is a slap on the wrist cause one day they might owe you one back.
Except when you're outside that club and you don't know the secret handshakes and no one owes you any favours it's very hard to know how far you can bend the rules.

I'll stop raving now, probably none of you even have a clue what I'm on about.

Bob.
Former user wrote on 2/13/2006, 7:10 AM
Just curious, what School system has the extra money to pay out on student projects?

Dave T2
Bob Greaves wrote on 2/13/2006, 7:56 AM
I can't believe how many people on this (and many other) forums are trying desparately to find some way to justify stealing someone else's work to incorporate into their own. With the single exception Spot mentioned above, if you didn't create it from scratch or you didn't pay for the rights to use it, then you can't use it. PLAIN and SIMPLE.

I agree with your intent but intellectual property laws according to the USA constitution exist only to provide limited exclusive rights. Any IP distributed to the general public also belongs to the general public it is distributed to in some limited way. In deed the reason why the TEACH ACT is a legal act is because it is in the very spirit of the USA constitution and the original philosophy that IP should enhance the immediate future of its initial owner and eventually future of all.

So it is not a plain and simple thing. Rather, the copyright law 1) extends ONLY certain rights to the owner and extends limited rights to everyone else initially but 2) eventually intends to allow all IP at some point in time to become public domain for the good of the whole. There was a balance of reasonableness that at one time existed but is slipping away as IP owners seek to tighten their grip and fatten their wallets in any manner that makes sense to them as fair and refuses to allow their contributions to actually become contributions to mankind. They seek only to contribute to their own wallet.

I, for one intend to respect the law and refuse to steal IP, but I also will absolutely champion the legal right of the public to inherit at first a few crumbs and eventually the entire pie before it spoils.

As I see it everything mankind creates belongs to all mankind in some way. IP laws originally sought to balance this issue. It is as much stealing to use IP that does not belong to you as it is stealing to maintain control of your own creation in a manner the law intends for it to be shared. There is a sense in which the law has to care about both you and others when developing a policy for IP.

As was said by SPOT above, we all create what we create by standing on the shoulders of our predecessors. There is a sense then in which eventually delivering our IP into the hands of the general public is debt we owe. IP laws originally sought to allow those whose efforts gave birth to a creation to benefit from it first, but originally it never intended that they would be the only one to benefit. The original intention was that exclusive rights to IP would expire for the good of all.