VIDEO PRODUCTION BLOG
Oct 12, 2009
FAIR USE
We recently submitted one of our videos to a competition sponsored by the National Association of Television Programming Executives (NATPE). The clip contained approximately 12 seconds of a classic Hollywood feature film. Since we had to sign off on multiple forms that ALL the work was original and we owned the rights to EVERYTHING, I brought this to their attention. I made a Fair Use claim, which is the section of the copyright law that allows authors to quote other authors. I wanted to be sure I was within current Fair User guidelines. Jack Sullivan, who is coordinating the competition for NATPE, was nice enough to respond with a pretty thorough explanation of what the industry now regards as a fair use. Here's what we wrote:
Here are
the rules for Multimedia Fair Use.
Multimedia presentations may include:
Up to 10% or 1,000 words, whichever is less, of a copyrighted text work. For
example, an entire poem of less than 250 words may be used, but no more than
three poems by one poet, or five poems by different poets from any anthology.
Up to
10%, but in no event more than 30 seconds, of the music and lyrics from an
individual musical work.
Up to 10%
or three minutes, whichever is less, of a copyrighted motion media work (for
example, an animation, video or film image).
A photograph or illustration may be used in its entirety but no more than five images by an artist or photographer may be reproduced. When using photographs and illustrations from a published collective work, no more than 10% or 15 images, whichever is less.