advice for newbie!

[Zane Barker]

[Shane Ryan] “How do I copy scenes off a copyright protected DVD and edit them in FCP? “

You contact the studio that owns the copyright, and pay what ever fee they require to use their copyrighted material. They should then be able to provide you that material in a format that is suitable for editing..

Shane Ryan are you really asking on a public forum using your own name how to break copyright laws?

**Hindsight is always 1080p**

[Mark Suszko]

Your flash drive will have the relatively small FCP project file on it, which a quicktime viewer probably can’t do anything with by itself, and the folder with the actual video and audio files, which quicktime can play for you.

The project file is like a playlist on your MP3 music player: it is the names of the songs and the order in which to play them, but not the songs themselves. So, you need to have both the project file and the media together when you transfer between machines, at least until you have identical copies of the media established on all the machines you work with, then in that case, only the project file needs to be transferred. Someone here will correct me if I didn’t get that quite right.

As to your DVD problem, well, we’re not in the habit of condoning piracy in these forums, that’s breaking our own rice bowls. If a DVD is not copy=-protected, you might try a free program called mpeg streamclip to convert the DVD into a file format you can edit with in FCP. Another way to get your “found footage” in a hurry is a web site called https://www.clipconverter.cc/ what this will do for you is to pull down youtube videos and convert them to a format you can edit with. This way you’ll have all of youtube to pull your “found footage” from.

I hope you didn’t pay much for what sounds like some very poor instruction at school. My suggestion is you get your hands on the manual or at least the FCP built-in manual and work the tutorial examples it gives. The manual is very clear and easy to go thru. You just have to buckle down and read thru it. Try actually hitting the same buttons and things as you read about them, and it will become clearer. Also, I find that a keyboard with all the hotkeys labeled is a very good aid. You can buy a FCP keyboard “skin” that fits over the plain mac keyboard, (example: https://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/photo-app-keyboards/) or if you’re really poor, make your own stickers out of post-it notes and ink scribbles, whatever it takes, to mark your keyboard shortcuts.

[Shane Ryan]

the 2 files on the flashdrive are 4KB and 400,000KB. When I try to play by R-click, Open with QuickTime, I get: Error -2048 this is not a file QuickTime understands.
Is the problem the way it was saved to my flashdrive or the way I’m trying to open it?

Also regarding “piracy”, I’m simply trying to use the DVDs I have for this project. Everyone is using music from their iTunes to score our films, these projects are under 5 minutes. As I stated in my initial question, my goal is to get a scene (5 to 30 seconds) off a copyright protected DVD and into FCP. IDK if pirates care about that…

The school and teachers are good, just there is a lack of technical instruction with this, I’m not the only student to complain about it.

[Zane Barker]

[Shane Ryan] ” I’m simply trying to use the DVDs I have for this project”

It does not matter what you are using it for, you need permission to use it.

[Shane Ryan] “Everyone is using music from their iTunes”

Well they should be getting permission to use that copyrighted music also.

Your teacher really should be instructing the students to NOT violate copyright laws. There are plenty of places that you can get music that will not violate copy write. Like here https://live.freeplaymusic.com/#licensing

**Hindsight is always 1080p**

[Shane Ryan]

can you please stop posting in this thread since you have no intent of helping me, you’re also embarrassing yourself with your incredible lack of knowledge pertaining to copyright law.
In a parody, for example, the parodist transforms the original by holding it up to ridicule. Purposes such as scholarship, research or education may also qualify as transformative uses because the work is the subject of review or commentary.
In some cases, the amount of material copied is so small (or “de minimis”) that the court permits it without even conducting a fair use analysis. For example, in the motion picture Seven, several copyrighted photographs appeared in the film, prompting the copyright owner of the photographs to sue the producer of the movie. The court held that the photos “appear fleetingly and are obscured, severely out of focus, and virtually unidentifiable.” The court excused the use of the photographs as “de minimis” and a fair use analysis was not required. ( Sandoval v. New Line Cinema Corp., 147 F.3d 215 (2d Cir. 1998).)

[Zane Barker]

Shane your “fair use” excuse doe NOT work. Fair use lets you show segments, it does not allow for copy or edit the original material.

You yourself stated.

[Shane Ryan] ” How do I copy scenes off a copyright protected DVD and edit them in FCP? “

The Cow does NOT condone breaking copyright. A quick search will shoe you many posts by the forum leaders about the subject.

For some one who wants to do video production you should care about copyright. If you spent a lot of time creating a unique production im sure you would not be pleased if someone else started messing with it with out your permission.

**Hindsight is always 1080p**

[Mark Suszko]

Shane, you don’t know a guy named Aaron, do you?

Nevermind. Listen, I’m not your dad or anything, but I want to suggest to you that you could be a little less defensive and more open to possible critique here, at least until you can expand on your situation to help explain and maybe justify what you’re doing. Your point about fair use is well taken, and if you have ever seen the re-cut trailer for The Shining, or for West Side Story, you’ll see a re-interpretation of copyrighted material that is truly art in itself. Where and how those guys got their footage is between them and their lawyers.

However, you have to understand that this little conversation is now worldwide and indelible, so we can’t afford to set bad examples or give bad information to the people who may read this thread in the future that are NOT you. When we speak here, we understand that it is speaking to two audiences at once: to the individual asking for help, and a wider community over a wider amount of time. So you’re not going to see much sympathy here for anything even remotely related to piracy.

I’m going to take a risk and trust what you say about your intentions being honorable. You’re just a kid, messing around for a school project, this is never going to be seen anywhere but your classroom and maybe your mom’s living room. Okay, fine. Where you get the footage you cut is none of our business. But we’re not going to help anybody rip commercial DVD’s here. No matter how noble the cause. We’re just not going to.

Chances are, you can find some of the same or similar and useable material on youtube put up by someone else, who themselves have a lack of respect for copyright law. I even gave you a way to access that and convert it for use in your timeline. Though the quality will be low, it should be good enough for the purposes of a school exercise. After you do the exercise, I’m counting on you to do the right thing.

Respectfully, MPS
(“Don’t want none? Don’t start none“)

[Mark Suszko]

Q: “the 2 files on the flashdrive are 4KB and 400,000KB. When I try to play by R-click, Open with QuickTime, I get: Error -2048 this is not a file QuickTime understands.
Is the problem the way it was saved to my flashdrive or the way I’m trying to open it?”

No, the problem likely is that you’re trying to open an FCP project file without a mac running FCP. The windows PC will not know what to do with your FCP project file, even if it has PC flavored Quicktime on it. Some other non-Apple NLE software *may* be able to import and convert the FCP project file and work with it, I’m not up on what Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas can do about that these days. However, owning one of those doesn’t seem like it would help you in an FCP class anyway.

If you’re looking for a way to work ahead on some elements outside of class, without owning a copy of FCP, you’re going to need a mac of some sort to start with. Then you would need a copy of Quicktime pro at the very least, and you can do *some* stuff using the free imovie that comes with a mac, but not much of it is directly applicable to FCP. There are discounted student versions and “light” versions of FCP, maybe one of those could help you.

[Ramzi Dreessen]

Shane,

I myself am a student in video production, and use these forums for guidance.

There are people here with many, many years of experience who are only trying to help you. It would therefore be in your own best interest to treat others with respect on the forums.

With insults, you run the risk of having your privileges of being a user revoked. I hope you understand that.

Lastly, your example of fair use, I would argue, is not even a good one. You quoted the example from Seven where “the court held that the photos ‘appear fleetingly and are obscured, severely out of focus, and virtually unidentifiable.'” Unless your (effectively) stolen media is “unidentifiable” in some way, you’re going to have some trouble making this argument.

Good luck,

-Ramzi

Ramzi Dreessen
Photo Editor – Buzz Magazine
Junior, News-Editorial Journalism – University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
http://www.rkdphoto.wordpress.com
buzzphoto@readbuzz.com

[Kylee Pena]

The utter lack of understanding of fair use and copyright as it pertains to education in this thread is astounding. Shane isn’t a professional trying to steal for commercial purposes – it’s for SCHOOL. This is allowed. Why don’t we try to actually help him solve his problem?

Shane – I recently needed to copy protected DVD footage for a remix project (which is ALSO protected under fair use!) and Handbrake and MPEG Streamclip were spotty depending on the protection used. I ended up having to use iSkySoft’s DVD Ripper, which costs money. If your teacher wants you to get this footage, he or she should be offering up some suggestions for how to get it.

As far as the project files and stuff – your FCP project file will only open in FCP. You have to export a self-contained Quicktime to play it in Quicktime.