Challenging copyright law with HP, SW, The Matrix, and LotR

[ziasudra]

From the Columbia Journalist: NYU Group Sponsors Film Competition Meant to Challenge Copyright Law

"The Film Remix Contest asks participants to make a five- to seven-minute parody from one of four blockbuster trilogies: Harry Potter (though there are now four HP films on DVD), Star Wars, The Matrix and Lord of the Rings. Parody is explicitly protected from the charge of copyright violation under Fair Use guidelines, a provision of the standing Copyright Act of 1976."

...

"The Film Remix Contest tests this concept against current law by encouraging participants to make works that are themselves legally protected, but whose process of creation is not."

I'm interested in the outcome of this contest: how many people will participate, whether anyone will get flagged for challenging the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), what this will do as a precedent for the US's fuzzy and confusing copyright laws, etc.

Read the full article here.

Comments

[best-of-five.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!! *loves*

[ziasudra-fic.livejournal.com]

:D

I hope you're feeling better!

[sparkly-stuff.livejournal.com]

That's really interesting! I'm going to have to try and keep up with this story, I want to know what happens too. I'm really not a fan of US and international digital copyright laws--I agree there need to be boundaries, but they're too paranoid. Some days I'm still amazed fanfic is legal.

Moneymoneymoney--that's all it's about.

I want to see the screening of the parody films; I hope it'll be open to the public!

[ziasudra-fic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's of interest to me in more ways than one (no, I'm not entering). I wonder what the winning piece will be like. I love parody films ;)

[ziasudra-fic.livejournal.com]

Looks like they're showing the contest entries on April 29: http://www.freeculturenyu.org/2006/04/03/announcing-comedies-of-fair-ue/