[DMCA-Activists] CFP: Fair Use Free Speech Documentary Competition

[Seth Johnson]

Fair Use Free Speech
CALL FOR ENTRIES
Deadline: May 1, 2006
Go to www.ufva.org for a flyer and entry forms

UFVA is hosting a contest for the best short documentaries
employing fair use, made by higher education students and
faculty.

Fair use is the legal use of other people's copyrighted work
without permission or payment--in certain circumstances. Fair use
ensures that freedom of speech survives, even though usually
copyright holders have the right to control use of their
material.

The law does not specify exactly what fair use is, in order to
leave a great deal of flexibility for different creative
communities and changes over time. When in doubt, the courts turn
to professional and creative practice and understanding. In
recent years, documentary filmmakers have found that broadcasters
and cablecasters, lawyers and insurers tell them that fair use is
too hard to define, and therefore they cannot invoke it. Since
fair use is interpreted by discipline and profession, working
professional documentary filmmakers through their organizations
established basic principles to make fair use more useable. That
statement, along with more information, is available at
centerforsocialmedia.org/fairuse.

Entrants should employ fair use in quoting material in their
documentaries, using the Documentary Filmmakers' Statement of
Best Practices in Fair Use as a guide to their decision making.

Get the statement at http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org
For background, read Untold Stories: Creative Consequences of the
Rights  Clearance Culture for Documentary Filmmakers -
http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/rock/finalreport.htm

ELIGIBILITY:

    * Must have primary creative control of the work and have all
rights and clearances for material not employed under fair use. ·
Work must be submitted in NTSC, DVD (DATA only) or mini dv

CRITERIA

    * Work must be 5 minutes or less · Work must be a documentary
in any genre, including but not limited to essay, satire, parody,
historical, musical, and personal · It must employ fair use in
quoting copyrighted material

PRIZES

    * $1,000 faculty only plus one year membership to UFVA ·
$1,000 best co-production between faculty and student(s), plus
one year membership to UFVA · $500 second prize co-production
plus one year membership to UFVA · Honorable mentions: iPods plus
one year membership to UFVA · Winners will be screened at the
UFVA Conference in August, 2006

-- 
Jeremy Butler

www.ScreenSite.org
www.TVCrit.com
www.AllThingsAcoustic.org

Professor - TCF Dept - U Alabama

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Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite
http://www.ScreenSite.org