Wk 1 comment 1 - Josh Tolar

Josh Tolar's Post

Image by Flickr user: Horia Varlan

I was really blown away by the video on Martin Luther King and Fair Use.   The fact that the documentary, “Eyes on the Prize”, is unavailable to so many people because of the expired copyright licenses just seems so unreal.  Since I started at Full Sail I have been getting into documentary film making and learning more about Fair Use from this weeks reading helps me put things into perspective.  Before starting the development on my action research there was a film I wanted to use in my project, but I didn’t have the permission.  It was a documentary about Buddhism that aired on PBS and had Richard Gere as the narrator.  I was immediately intimated by the mere thought of using the documentary in any way so I decided to forget about it.  I finally contacted PBS about using the documentary and 2 months later they said I could use it as long as I was using it to teach Buddhism.  Of course I had already developed my own media and the response came too late, but I did become aware of Fair Use during this time.

I’m amazed at all the videos I have seen so far on copyright and how important it is in our lives today.  For so many years I have written music from the inspiration of many commercial artists and I have never used samples from anyone, like in the documentary “Good Copy/Bad Copy”, but its amazing how other cultures around the world are using those samples.  I have used samples before, but they have always been recordings of ambient sounds like traffic or construction sites and those samples were then imported into a sequencer for manipulation.

Apart from the documentaries on Fair use and Copyright, the Ted Talk with Larry Lessig was nothing short of brilliant.  Taking away from his talk, I am reminded about my professional environment and the restrictions on using Creative Commons.  It is important to start embracing this type of licensed material, but there is a belief in my professional environment that the owner of a certain license might decide to change the license at any given time and ultimately restricting the use of media that is already being used.  I’m not sure if this is possible and I understand the concern, but if individuals are intimated by Creative Commons, it only limits our creative abilities.  In developing content for my action research, I used a lot of creative commons material and doing so dramatically increased my ability to produce a rich educational product.

My knowledge of copyright was limited before viewing the videos this week.  I found the content to be exhilarating and sometimes emotional, especially the video about Fair Use with the documentary on Martin Luther King.  We live in a network of social media and intertwined within that media are the creative minds willing to express their very being.  The opportunity to create something to teach people and to enrich their lives is truly a wonderful experience and being able to tap into the massive amounts of media that already exists only increases our ability to create and flourish in the vast social network.

Image used:

“Large copyright graffiti sign on cream colored wall” by Flickr user Horia Varlan used under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.
Website Address: http://www.flickr.com/photos/horiavarlan/4273272605/

My Response

Congratulations on getting the permission from PBS!  I remember when I was a young teen I wanted to make films one day.  There was a particularly influential artist I wanted to use in my films.  He lived in Bad Hamburg, Germany so I had to call him at 3am.  We talked for an hour and he said I could use all his music in my films.  I was very happy about that.  Of course, nothing was in writing and I never went on to make those grand films, but it was nice to get permission!  I remember how difficult it was to even get his number.  I had to contact the publisher from the back of the CD cover and luckily they gave me the Artist’s number.  These days, the internet makes it so much easier to contact the people we need.

I am also grateful for places like FreePlayMusic.com and Office Clipart where we don’t have to worry about licenses and such.  I also noticed that places like iStock provide some images to Microsoft.  I found it interesting that many magazines are using stock images from places like Getty images.

I appreciate your sentiments regarding the need to use media in today’s world.  Students pretty much have no regard for copyright laws. If I were to lay down the law on this one, I’m afraid I would get inferior work since they lack the sophistication to go through all those usage rights.