As you probably know, the Copyright Office is about to close the
window on filing
comments in its docket on the DMCA
exemptions.<http://www.copyright.gov/1201/> At this point, you can
respond to what someone else has put in.
If you do contribute to the record, *it could make a big difference.*
This docket is about whether you win an exemption to the penalties for
breaking encryption in order to access copyrighted material under fair use.
Like when you want to take a clip from a DVD to show in class, or to
include in scholarly work.
Two years ago, both documentarians and professors won exemptions. They now
have to renew them if they still want them.
One of the “classes” of works being considered this time around is e-books.
Below, as an example, is the submission I made in that class. It took me
five minutes to write. (I submitted it online, that took another minute.) I
got help from Jack Lerner and his good colleagues at the University of
Southern California IP clinic; they’re all cc’d here. You can get help from
them too. They’re also helping out the documentarians.
Feb. 2, 2012
TO: United States Copyright Office, Library of Congress
FROM: Patricia Aufderheide, University Professor and Director of the Center
for Social Media, School of Communication, American University (
[log in to unmask], 202-643-5356)
IN RE: Docket No. RM 2011-07
*NEED FOR AN EXEMPTION TO PRODUCE MULTIMEDIA E-BOOKS*
* *
*Summary of argument: As a scholar who prepares multimedia works in e-book
format, I need to incorporate video clips into my e-books (Proposed Class
of Works “7E”) to ensure my readers will have stable access to the clips, a
practice that I cannot do without an exemption to the DMCA.*
* *
I write in support of the Comment of Mark Berger, Bobette Buster, Barnet
Kellman, and Gene Rosow, petitioning for an exemption to the DMCA’s
anti-circumvention measures for the purpose of creating multimedia e-books
(Proposed Class of Works “7E”).
I am a University Professor at American University, a scholar of
documentary film, and the author of *Documentary Film: A Very Short
Introduction *(Oxford University Press, 2007). I anticipate being able to
use this exemption for future editions of that book and other books.
I have in the past incorporated multimedia elements into my work, where the
platform and publisher permitted. For instance, I published “How
Documentary Filmmakers Overcame their Fear of Quoting and Learned to Employ
Fair Use: a Tale of Scholarship in Action,” in *International Journal of
Communication* in the Winter 2007 issue. I incorporated a range of video
clips drawn from copyrighted sources such as documentary films, television
programs, and a website. These were incorporated simply by embedding videos
through links to the site. All those links, upon my visiting the *International
Journal of Communication *site and downloading the PDF on January 28, 2012,
were broken. This was because of a website redesign. This is one example of
why stable access to scholarly citation in multimedia formats will require
copying and importing the material. However, I am concerned that the DMCA
may prohibit the stable access that I and many other authors require.
In my History of Documentary course, which I expect to develop for an
online platform and draw upon to produce a multimedia version of my text, I
routinely employ clips accessed under a previous DMCA exemption. For
instance, in order to demonstrate the difference in approach between a
traditional broadcast public affairs documentary and a personal essay
documentary, I contrast the way two films, *Trade Secrets* and *Blue Vinyl*,
treat the same topics and even the same interviewees. In order to discuss
the difference between an advocacy and news approach to the same topic, I
excerpt segments on similar topics from both the PBS *Nova *program “Is
Wal-Mart Good for America?” and Brave New Films’ *Wal-Mart: The High Cost
of Low Price. *I also provide brief exemplary excerpts of films in order to
illustrate a trend or style. For instance, I show excerpts from *Berlin:
Symphony of a Great City*, *Rien que les Heures*, and *Rain*, to
demonstrate an international modernist fascination with the synergy between
people and machines in the urban environment.
I want and expect to be able to use, under the same solid principles of
fair use, these materials beyond the formal teaching platform, for instance
in the publishing of an e-book. I look forward to being able to teach,
explain and explore the history and ethics of documentary film, using
current techniques of display and study and across different platforms.
Thank you for your consideration.
--
Pat Aufderheide, University Professor and Director
Center for Social Media, School of Communication
American University
3201 New Mexico Av. NW, #330
Washington, DC 20016-8080
www.centerforsocialmedia.org
[log in to unmask]
202-643-5356
Order Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright, with Peter
Jaszi. University of Chicago Press, 2011.
<http://www.amazon.com/Reclaiming-Fair-Use-Balance-Copyright/dp/0226032280/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1321544105&sr=8-2>
Sample *Reclaiming Fair Use! * <http://centerforsocialmedia.org/reclaiming>
Early comments on *Reclaiming Fair Use:*
"The Supreme Court has told us that fair use is one of the "traditional
safeguards" of the First Amendment. As this book makes abundantly clear,
nobody has done better work making sure that safeguard is actually
effective than Aufderheide and Jaszi. The day we have a First Amendment
Hall of Fame, their names should be there engraved in stone. --Lewis Hyde,
author, *Common as Air: Revolution, Art and Ownership*
“*Reclaiming Fair Use* will be an important and widely read book that
scholars of copyright law will find a ‘must have’ for their bookshelves. It
is a sound interpretation of the law and offers useful guidance to the
creative community that goes beyond what some of the most ideological books
about copyright tend to say.”—Pamela Samuelson, University of California,
Berkeley School of Law
"If you only read one book about copyright this year, read *Reclaiming Fair
Use. *It is the definitive history of the cataclysmic change in the custom
and practice surrounding the fair use of materials by filmmakers and
other groups." --Michael Donaldson, Esq. Senior Partner, Donaldson &
Callif, Los Angeles.
----
Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu
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