This mash-up video raises so many issues: copyright, fair use, DMCA, filtering, broadcast flag, and net neutrality.
Take a look below. The first one to accurately identify why for each in the comments gets a piece of PK swag of their choosing.
This mash-up video raises so many issues: copyright, fair use, DMCA, filtering, broadcast flag, and net neutrality.
Take a look below. The first one to accurately identify why for each in the comments gets a piece of PK swag of their choosing.
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DMCA - The ‘Election’
DMCA - The ‘Election’ video footage clearly came from a DVD. Ripping DVDs is a violation of the DMCA, as it involves using a circumvention device. Tsk tsk tsk Slate.
Fair use - these issues are always decided based on the facts. However, Slate is a commercial entity, and the fact that the original footage was gotten via illegal means (see DMCA), I think it’s going to be exceedingly tough to win a fair use.
Filtering: AT&T and the MPAA would like ISPs to engage in wholesale surveillance of the network in order to spot copyrighted content. Such filters would almost certainly spot this film.
Broadcast flag: On the off chance that this footage wasn’t ripped via DVD, and was instead broadcast on cable TV, there is a good chance that the movie studios would insist that the TV station set the broadcast flag, so that users couldn’t make a local recording.
Copyright: The Election movie footage is copyrighted, and used without permission. As is the Obama girl clip.
Net Neutrality: This one might be a stretch. If Net Neutrality isn’t protected, videos such as this one might be threatened. Ok, in this case, Slate, a profitable enterprise owned by the Washington Post is certainly able to pay the big bucks required to get fast transmission from AT&T. However, were it made by an online activist instead, there is a good chance that users wouldn’t be able to view it in any reasonable amount of time, simply because the author couldn’t afford the shakedown money that AT&T, Comcast, and others would charge.
Now.. about that t-shirt? csoghoian at gmail dot com
DMCA - The ‘Election’
Yes, had Slate digitally ripped the DVD instead of doing an digital-analog-digital conversion, it would have run up against the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. I’m presuming to stay within the law, that Slate went analog hole. Chris Breen of MacWorld boldly did not.
Yes, the “commercial nature” is a consideration, but generally that’s not a question of the entity, but of the use of the work under fair use. This is a good candidate for fair use under criticism and political speech, using the Election footage to make the critique on the real-life campaign footage.
Don’t forget Google’s YouTube filters, too. Would this pass the “dolphin test” in the Fair Use Principles for User Generated Video Content?
Yes, for the Election footage, but what about the campaign footage? The FCC’s broadcast flag content protection scheme didn’t have any exemption for fair use of news-related content. And in the last Congress, a broadcast flag bill to legally instate the flag left it up to the TV broadcasters to decide whether or not news content could be flagged—as NBC apparently wanted to be able to repackage and sell DVDs of Meet the Press best-ofs. It would be just as difficult to put the motion picture clips on the Internet as it would be the news-worthy content.
It’s all copyrighted—the Election footage, the, Obama girl footage, and the campaign news.
Yep, this is what I was looking for. Net Neutrality guarantees anyone has a voice on the Internet, not just those allowed to broadcast in the walled garden.
Great work, Chris. Your Net Neutrality t-shirt is on its way!