Obtaining Copyright Permissions

Indie Filmmaker's Journal: Part One

“If someone uses my images without my permission, I will own their home.”  She said it with a smile in a small voice, soft and smooth.  It was in her eyes and her smile, she meant what she said.  She told us a story of finding one of her works being sold on the internet without her permission.  She told us about registering copyright.  We were interviewing her for an artist profile of her to put on our local public access cable TV station. We knew we had her permission, we were doing a 30 minute video profile of her as a completely non-commercial gift to her and to our community.  Video is our hobby, we want to increase the cultural density of our community, we did not want to become homeless from our good intentions.

In almost all cases creating videos is a composite craft.   In making documentaries, in making fictional movies and in filming performances using the work, the property, of others is necessary.   There is nothing like the desire to follow the rules and also a good dose of fear of losing your home to stimulate the search for knowledge.




Stanford University Library  has a wonderful site to learn about Copyright, Permissions Process, Fair Use, Releases, and other pertinent copyright information.  Studying the site is a good tutorial.  Another natural place to study is the  United States Copyright Office which give basics like “Taking the Mystery Out of Copyright” for students and teachers  http://www.loc.gov/teachers/copyrightmystery/text/ , as well as, how to registrar a copyright and all the other office government copyright stuff you would like to know.

Intellectual property law, Copyright protects original works fixed in a tangible medium of expression, published and unpublished, such as literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works, poetry, novels, movies, videos, computer software and games, and architecture.  It does not protect ideas, facts, systems, or methods of operation.  How those ideas or facts, etc, are expressed may be protected.

Copyright protection is the moment a work is created and fixed in a tangible form.  Registration as copyright with the government is voluntary.  There are some good reasons to register, good legal, make it easier to own their home kind of reasons.  It is voluntary. 

Once our video is created it is property protected by copyright.  It is published by being aired on our local public access cable TV station so there is even an independent record.  We have not registered. 

Life was simple.  We make cultural type informational features interviewing artists who we know about their work and their creative processes.  We get straight forward permission from the artist/interviewee to film them and their work.  We get permission from a local musician to use some of their personal MP3 creations for intro and background.  Everything is non-commercial, educational and for community enrichment. 

Life never stays simple.  Growth is inevitable.  Thank goodness.  We wanted to do other video projects, music performances, literary performances.  Suddenly we face the question, “How can I find out who owns a copyright?”