#peter jaszi

[hyperallergic]

Are Art Professionals Afraid of Fair Use?

(screenshot via collegeart.org)

Visual art professionals are not making use of fair use, a new…

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[melissamudd-blog]

In the increasingly complex and combative arena of copyright in the digital age, record companies sue college students over peer-to-peer music sharing, YouTube removes home movies because of a song playing in the background, and filmmakers are denied a distribution deal when some permissions “i” proves undottable. Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi chart a clear path through the confusion by urging a robust embrace of a principle long-embedded in copyright law, but too often poorly understood—fair use. By challenging the widely held notion that current copyright law has become unworkable and obsolete in the era of digital technologies, Reclaiming Fair Use promises to reshape the debate in both scholarly circles and the creative community. This indispensable guide distills the authors’ years of experience advising documentary filmmakers, English teachers, performing arts scholars, and other creative professionals into no-nonsense advice and practical examples for content producers. Reclaiming Fair Use begins by surveying the landscape of contemporary copyright law—and the dampening effect it can have on creativity—before laying out how the fair-use principle can be employed to avoid copyright violation. Finally, Aufderheide and Jaszi summarize their work with artists and professional groups to develop best practice documents for fair use and discuss fair use in an international context. Appendixes address common myths about fair use and provide a template for creating the reader’s own best practices. Reclaiming Fair Use will be essential reading for anyone concerned with the law, creativity, and the ever-broadening realm of new media.

[nyrbclassics]

A rarely discussed form of self-censorship happens routinely on college campuses. Professors and graduate students choose not to tackle academic arguments that involve music, movies, or other forms of popular culture. They worry that including relevant clips in their work means the hassle and expense of getting copyright permission for each snippet. But in many cases, scholars can use this material without breaking the law, even if they never ask the rights holders and even if they hope to profit from their resulting academic books.

Jeffrey R. Young, "Pushing Back Against Legal Threats by Putting Fair Use Forward" in The Chronicle of Higher Education. See the book under discussion, Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright by Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi.