The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.0811 Tuesday, 19 September 2006
[1] From: Christopher Baker <
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Date: Monday, 18 Sep 2006 13:34:58 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0804 Movie Stills
[2] From: Graham Hall <
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Date: Monday, 18 Sep 2006 18:46:21 +0000
Subj: Copy, right. Timon TLN 1473 -1479
[3] From: William Walsh <
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Date: Monday, 18 Sep 2006 16:02:22 -0400
Subj: RE: SHK 17.0804 Movie Stills
[4] From: William L Davis <
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Date: Monday, 18 Sep 2006 23:26:00 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0796 Movie Stills
[5] From: Jeffrey Jordan <
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Date: Monday, 18 Sep 2006 23:19:01 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0804 Movie Stills
[6] From: John Crowley <
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Date: Tuesday, 19 Sep 2006 11:34:37 -0400
Subj: Movie Stills
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Christopher Baker <
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Date: Monday, 18 Sep 2006 13:34:58 -0400
Subject: 17.0804 Movie Stills
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0804 Movie Stills
Thanks to all who have responded to my query on movie stills. It
generated more of a discussion than I expected, but these are
interesting aspects of property rights I had not considered.
Chris Baker
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Graham Hall <
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Date: Monday, 18 Sep 2006 18:46:21 +0000
Subject: Copy, right. Timon TLN 1473 -1479
An observer writes:
Contributors, I must be round with you!
In the hope of avoiding a catastrophic apoplexy I have to breach my
scilens and shout out that I am going to burst a blood-vessel if some
SHAKSPERians doesn't introduce to the "copyright" thread the scandal of
printing conglomerates hijacking, monopolising and dictating with
ever-increasing ferocity the content of and access to academic
publications. This impinges upon Shakespeare studies as much as to other
fields with great deleterious effect. Worse, it's being done only for
ducats. Copyright me no copyright. Their baseness is a far greater
horror than some impecunious student sticking a still from a Branagh
epic as an illustration into an essay already past its deadline, or some
nursing home matron giving the residents a collective public viewing of
Baz Luhrmann's latest in the common parlour while failing to send
Twentieth Century Rank Brothers Dreamworks (Yes, I know! So don't
write!) dosh.
Troylus and Cresida TLN 1239
Best,
G
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: William Walsh <
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Date: Monday, 18 Sep 2006 16:02:22 -0400
Subject: 17.0804 Movie Stills
Comment: RE: SHK 17.0804 Movie Stills
Of possible interest. The British Academy released a report today on
the effect of copyright on scholarship in the humanities and social
sciences in the UK.
http://www.britac.ac.uk/reports/copyright/contents.html
[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: William L Davis <
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Date: Monday, 18 Sep 2006 23:26:00 -0400
Subject: 17.0796 Movie Stills
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0796 Movie Stills
I find it interesting how the discussion has departed so quickly from
what, to my view, was the original point. Gabriel Egan's first response
to Chris Baker clearly showed that he believed people would not face any
legal repercussions if they were to appropriate copyrighted material
without permission, specifically in educational situations. Having
spent several years working in the area of intellectual property and
copyright law, I knew his assumptions were simply wrong. Even though he
apparently has not ever met someone who has faced such a situation, his
lack of exposure to the cases involving these matters does not equate to
their absence. My original response was intended to state as much, and
to offer fair warning to those who might make the mistake of assuming
his position on the matter was correct.
Now, however, in the course of explaining copyright matters, we have
shifted from how the law works (descriptive) to how we think it should
work (prescriptive), moving into philosophical views that depart far
away from the original point. It feels a lot like the old bait and
switch selling tactics at department stores, where we enter with one
premise and are immediately hounded to pursue another. It seems to me
this discussion was less about discovering how property law actually
works, but more about providing a stage for personal ax grinding. Yes,
we can trace the history of intellectual property law, quibble over
definitions related to those laws, express our personal judgments about
those laws, but ultimately the question comes back to the original
point: If you appropriate copyrighted material without permission, will
you run the risk of getting into legal trouble for it? And the answer,
whether we like it or not, whether we agree with it or not, whether we
support it not, is still a resounding "Yes."
Now, let's see, where is that naked movie still of Falstaff? I knew I
had it here somewhere....
William
[5]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jeffrey Jordan <
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Date: Monday, 18 Sep 2006 23:19:01 -0500
Subject: 17.0804 Movie Stills
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0804 Movie Stills
Replying to Larry Weiss.
>Jeffrey Jordan's otherwise admirable post says it is "replying to"
>me when he quotes the following passage ...
I simply meant I was replying to the post from Mr. Weiss. The quoted
lines were in his post. There was no intent to imply Mr. Weiss was
personally responsible for the statute language or had to argue it. I
like to mention whose post I'm replying to, since I find it makes the
discussion easier to follow. It makes it easier to backtrack.
>He is not replying to anything I said. ...
Agreed, I was not replying to Mr. Weiss's personal views, but was
expressing my own views in response to the legal language he happened to
include.
>One thing that must be considered is whether the work being
>copied is the movie or a photograph having a separate copyright.
>...
Agreed, that is an important point, whether the "still" is one from the
ordinary run of the movie, or was taken under separate contract and with
separate copyright. It could make a great difference. As I understood
the original post, Chris Baker meant stills taken directly from the
movie. But he may not have, and only he could answer that.
>Making assumptions of the character reflected by Jeffrey's
>analysis often gets good people into bad trouble.
Not until people are no longer allowed to use quotes from literary
works. There really is such a thing as "fair use," well established in
law, and motion pictures enjoy no exemption from the law. Moviemakers,
themselves, have been sued over it. Indeed, as recently as 1997 the
U.S. Supreme Court ruled that moviemakers, themselves, had some "fair
use" defense in using copyrighted pictures as movie props, without
compensation to the copyright owner of the pictures. See Jackson v.
Warner Bros., Inc., Civil Action No. 96-CV-72976 (Aug. 29, 1997) (Hood,
J.) (Docket No. 18, 14 pp.) As long as we're doin' legal stuff. The
time standard the Court applied in that case was "60 seconds" (it
concerned a feature film.) For a movie running at 30 frames per second,
that Court time standard, if also applied, would be some 1800 stills per
movie. One does not expect the Court to be entirely consistent,
however, so any simple calculation should be viewed with utmost caution.
But there isn't going to be any problem with using a few ordinary
stills taken out of an ordinary movie, for a recognized purpose. It's
"fair use" to use a few Shakespeare movie stills in connection with a
Shakespeare discussion.
Replying to Tom Krause.
>Copyright infringement is not theft, not even under the Berne
Convention. ...
No argument, the usage is loose, legally speaking. Common language
doesn't make fine legal distinctions. But, what common word is one
supposed to apply that will not be objectionable somehow in technical
legal terms? You'll not find any such word. One would make ordinary
discussion impossible.
>... please do so with reference to the differences between criminal and
>civil law, the elements of each crime/tort, ...
That simply isn't practical in general discussion, and also, theft can
be both punishable and compensable, that is, both criminal and civil
procedures can apply to theft, so the difference is not really worth
marking in general discussion. As far as the public is concerned,
stealin' is stealin', and the legal technicalities are not enforced
around the water cooler.
>I(2) that each time a copyrighted work is copied without permission,
>the copyright owner loses a sale, that would be nice too.
It is not necessary to prove, individually, that every murder is wrong,
in order to prove murder is wrong. "Every instance" has nothing to do
with it. Copyright infringement is wrong, in any case, whether
financial loss in the particular case is readily demonstrable or not.
The practicality that only some offenses are punished is no voice
against the principle of law, itself. Practicality will determine
whether a particular case reaches the courts, but that's all. It
doesn't make "getting away with it" right.
The follow-up post by Larry Weiss is quite interesting, but concerns
earlier times, before DVDs. The digital revolution, and the computer
revolution, will probably lead to some further, minor changes in
copyright law, but there's no reason I know of to think that the basics
of fair use will change just because the media have gone digital. There
is no reason to think that taking a digital frame is less fair use than
taking a quote from a novel.
And I do hope somebody is helping Chris Baker find the stills he's
looking for.
[6]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Crowley <
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Date: Tuesday, 19 Sep 2006 11:34:37 -0400
Subject: Movie Stills
Larry Weiss is right that most movie stills are not frames taken from
the movie -- in fact almost none are -- they are the work of the stills
photographer, or certainly were -- that person even gets a credit on
most older films. On the other hand that photographer is unlikely to
have any rights in the pictures produced, they being "work for hire" in
almost all cases.
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