Center for the Study of the Public Domain

HOW LAW CONSTRUCTS AND CONSTRAINS CULTURE
Held in association with the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival

View short movies from the conference

These short movies are licensed under Creative Commons Licenses

A view from artists

To Clear or not to Clear (MPEG version)
Filmmaker Chris Hegedus discusses how rights clearance practices have changed since the making of “Don’t Look Back”

Disappearing History? (MPEG version)
Filmmaker Orlando Bagwell talks about making “Citizen King” and why “Eyes on the Prize” is no longer in circulation

Great Composers Steal (MPEG version)
Composer Anthony Kelley visits classical and jazz traditions and explains why you can find a doppelganger for almost any tune

Some legal perspectives*

Documentary Filmmaking (MPEG version)
Legal experts James Boyle and John Sloss discuss the legal and practical realities facing documentary filmmakers, including copyright law and errors and omissions insurance

Music Sampling (MPEG version)
Music lawyer Whitney Broussard describes how law can change the kind of music that gets made, and how clearance processes can make the whole artistic community poorer

*please note that these are only excerpts from a panel discussion at a conference and not legal advice.

News story about conference

Conference brochure

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Culture on the Legal Cutting Room Floor
Documentary filmmakers and legal experts discuss the intellectual property hurdles faced by filmmakers in clearing rights and renewing limited licenses for images and music, the conflict between their need to access protected material and their desire to protect their own works and maintain the integrity of those works after production, and legal reforms that take into account artists’ perspectives.

Music, Bound by Law?
Would the evolution of genres such as jazz, which relied on practices of borrowing and referencing, be possible under today’s legal regime? Musicians and legal experts examine the treatment of creative practices across musical genres, how the line between permissible borrowing and theft in music has shifted in recent years, and musical forms that would be enabled by different ways of doing business within the music industry.

April 2, 2004, 10am-5:30pm
Duke Law School, Room 3043

This conference, held in association with Full Frame, the premier documentary film festival in the United States, examined the impact of intellectual property law on documentary filmmaking and music. It brought together artists – documentary filmmakers and directors, classical composers, jazz musicians and audio collage artists – with a distinguished roster of legal experts to explore the complex interplay between law and art.

First Panel: 10am-1pm

CULTURE ON THE LEGAL CUTTING ROOM FLOOR

“You’re totally free to make a movie in an empty room, with your two friends.” -Davis Guggenheim, filmmaker

Documentary films are records of our culture. But our culture is full of legally protected objects – songs, films, signs, even logos or buildings. Sometimes filmmakers need to use pre-existing copyrighted material to tell a story. Sometimes they accidentally capture copyrighted work in their documentary footage. However, in order to distribute their documentaries, filmmakers must often clear the rights to every protected fragment of film or song – whether it is a focal point of the scene or merely an incidental or fleeting detail. This first panel will bring to light the intellectual property hurdles faced by documentary filmmakers, and the conflict between their need to access protected material, and their desire to protect their own works and maintain the integrity of those works after production.

Lunch: 1pm-2:30pm

Screening and discussion of “Nuestra Hernandez,” a fictional documentary treating issues in appropriation.

Second Panel: 2:30pm-5:30pm

MUSIC, BOUND BY LAW?

“Culture…grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before.” – Judge Kozinski, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

From classical and folk, to jazz and blues, to rock and roll, hip hop and mash-ups, music has a long tradition of borrowing, recombining, and building upon existing musical elements. How has this history of borrowing been seen by the law? What lines do artists themselves see between borrowing and theft? This panel will examine the treatment of creative practices across musical genres, and consider the musical forms that would be enabled by different ways of doing business within the music industry.