[Commons-Law] Peter Jaszi´s Study on Documentary Film Making and the escalating costs of copyright clearances

[Ram]

Dear all,

Peter Jaszi and Pat Aufderheide have published the final report from
their year-long study, Untold Stories: Creative Consequences of the
Rights Clearance Culture for Documentary Filmmakers. The study
explores the implications of the rights clearance process on
documentary filmmaking, and makes recommendations to lower costs,
reduce frustration, and promote creativity.

The Center for Social Media at American University and the Program on
Intellectual Property and the Public Interest (PIPPI) at the
Washington College of Law have conducted this year-long research
project. Pat Aufderheide, a longtime critic and scholar of independent
media and director of the Center for Social Media, and law professor
Peter Jaszi, who heads PIPPI, supervised the project, that was funded
by the Rockefeller Foundation.


Jaszi and Aufderheide have found in their study that:

1. Rights clearance costs are high, and have escalated dramatically in
the last two decades

2. Gatekeepers, such as distributors and insurers, enforce rigid and
high-bar rights clearance expectations

3. The rights clearance process is arduous and frustrating, especially
around movies and music

4. Rights clearance problems force filmmakers to make changes that
adversely affect—and limit the public's access to--their work, and the
result is significant change in documentary practice

5.Filmmakers, while sometimes seeing themselves as hostages of the
"clearance culture," also are creators of it

6. Filmmakers nonetheless exercise fair use, and imagine a more
rational rights environment

The report also has a series of recommendations. The report is
available at the following url:
http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/rock/finalreport.htm


warm regards

Ram