0.6 Movies and film  (Page 2/4)

• Is it infringing to take clips from movies?

Q: My little brother enjoys a certain scene from an Indiana Jones movie. We found it on You Tube and bookmarked it. He likes to borrow my laptop to watch it every chance he gets. It’s great that my folks don’t have to buy the DVD just for his temporary infatuation, but what are we teaching him? Is this legal?

A: First, you are choosing to watch a video that someone else posted on the Internet. That in itself is not against the law. If you were to download it and then share copies with dozens of friends, then you might be infringing. The second question is: did the person who posted the movie clip infringe on the copyright of the movie producers? The answer to this one is, most likely, yes. They may have sought permission for it, but chances are slim. Most people don’t care to pay permission fees in order to distribute something for free. Are they at risk? There’s a chance that the movie distributors will contact them with a “cease and desist” letter, or even a lawsuit. However, in this excerpt an industry insider explains how YouTube traces copyrighted material, and what responses are taken once something is found:

Copyright holders provide the company with Content IDs for material such as songs, and every video uploaded to YouTube is scanned against the database to see if it contains copyrighted material that matches one of the digital fingerprints. If it does, owners of the copyrighted material have a range of options, from asking the site to remove the video to selling ads around it, or just monitoring its popularity. "In many cases, however, the label elects to leave it up and to reap whatever benefits the video may avail them to, such as income from advertising or promotional value," said Pauline Stack, a spokeswoman for ASCAP, in an email.

So in many cases, the copyright owners of a movie clip have decided to leave the clip on YouTube for promotional purposes, or in order to sell advertising.

Finally, what are you teaching the little brother? Simply put, he’s learning that short bits of entertainment are free online. In this example, that’s all that is happening.

Q: I would like to include a short clip from a movie as part of a class presentation. Can I copy that clip onto the flash drive that holds the entire presentation?

A: For a class assignment, in a registered class at an accredited school or university, you may make a copy of nearly anything. The copy you make should not be used in any other way. If the movie is on a DVD protected by digital rights management (DRM) software, you may not bypass that software even for a legal use.

Q: If I check out a DVD from a library or a store, is it legal for me to copy just a 5-minute portion of it for my own entertainment?

A: Maybe. If the DVD does not have DRM (software to prevent copying), then a short clip made for personal use is not an infringing action. However, some movie companies may not agree with this interpretation.

Q: I want to post a 4-minute clip from an older (1986) movie onto YouTube. Surely that’s not still under copyright?