Making a color reel, anyone know how fair use applies?

[Mel Matsuoka]

IANAL, so I’d advise talking to an actual “L” if you’re genuinely concerned about this…

That said, the legality of ripping a commercial, CSS-encrypted DVD is not really a “Fair Use” issue, but a DMCA issue. I suppose you can make a case that your particular usage of the DVDs in question constitutes legitimate “Fair Use” (although “Fair Use” has an actual, legal definition that generally excludes use cases like yours, where direct or indirect commercial gain applies), but any Fair Use arguments are rendered moot by the DMCA, which actually makes it illegal to circumvent the encryption on a commercial DVD.

In other words, in the United States, you cannot exercise your “Fair Use” rights with a commercial DVD without violating Title I of the DMCA. A stupid, silly paradox, to be sure!

That said, you’re probably more likely to win the MegaMillions Powerball lottery than you are actually having the Feds knock down your door and send you to Guantanamo, just because you ripped scenes from a DVD for your own demo reel…For whatever it’s worth.

[Sascha Haber]

What I do is to limit my usage of those clips to the content already used in trailers.
The problem is that you will either piss of your old boss or the people who paid to get the job done.
They both think they have more right to it because they handed over money.
But I never heard of anyone getting into legal trouble by using their own work in the appropriate form of a personal showreel.
I have been asked to take out one or two shots, so be it, but no studio will actually take legal actions against workers, word gets out and the place looks like a place to avoid.

A slice of color…

Resolve 10.1.4 – Smoke 2015
Colorist / VFX / Aerial footage nerd
https://vimeo.com/saschahaber

[Joseph Owens]

[Mel Matsuoka] ” you ripped scenes from a DVD for your own demo reel”

Or you could ask for permission from the producers. Sometimes they are flattered.

If there is a distribution deal in place where they might have to ask permission from the current window-holder, then that is another issue. Usually an exhibitor is happy to get some extra coverage and exposure if it promotes the work in a positive way. “I am proud of the achievement. Here, have a look!”

But there are also NDAs and the like to worry about, so as an employee of a post house, you may not be entirely aware of the service contract in place between the agreeing parties. “Fair Use” in a broad sense, usually only applies to news and documentary to cover incidental inclusion. its not for nothing that teams of roto workers are busy erasing commercial logos from everything that is being shot, and that a distributor will not touch anything that doesn’t carry E&O insurance.

And its a constant bug in a number of people’s bonnet that you can never be entirely sure what constitutes “your” work (substantial alteration) in a demo.

jPo

“I always pass on free advice — its never of any use to me” Oscar Wilde.

[Danny Thompson]

My strategy, more or less. A lot of my work is up on youtube etc already.

Studio – eMac G4, 256mb ram, Final Cut DV
Mobile – IBM R50, 1024mb ram, 80gb Hitachi Travelstar ATA133 7200rpm hard drive

[Marc Wielage]

Legally, the studio can sue you if they really want to. YouTube and other sources can detect copyrighted material in some cases and delete it (or throw up a warning notice). What I think can be done is to use shot sections, re-edited, and with new background music. I see VFX artists and cinematographers do this kind of thing all the time. I also put an identifying “bug” in the lower left showing the name of the project and the DP and/or director to make it clear it’s just a clip, and I keep each clip to under :30 seconds. I’d say that pretty much defines the nature of Fair Use, but it is open to interpretation.

[Mel Matsuoka]

[Marc Wielage] ” I also put an identifying “bug” in the lower left showing the name of the project and the DP and/or director to make it clear it’s just a clip, and I keep each clip to under :30 seconds. I’d say that pretty much defines the nature of Fair Use, but it is open to interpretation.
“

Sorry to be so pedantic, but this legally incorrect.

At least in the US, Fair Use (with a capital F and a capital U) is not a general, interpretive, moral or ethical concept. It has an actual legal definition in US Copyright Law. Just because the usage seems “fair” on logical and ethical grounds does not make it “Fair Use”, and the idea that excerpting :30 or less of the original work constitutes non-infringing use is a myth. There is absolutely no such exemption for “excerpts” in US Copyright Law. In other words, using even 3 seconds of a copyrighted work (even with attribution) is technically illegal if the usage does not fall within the “four-factor” considerations of the Fair Use doctrine.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that you’re morally in the clear by doing what Danny is asking to do. It’s the post-production equivalent of jaywalking. But it’s still technically not legal, and we shouldn’t pretend that it’s “fair use” just because it seems like it is.

[Marc Wielage]

I disagree, and you are being pedantic.

[Mel Matsuoka]

[Marc Wielage] “I disagree, and you are being pedantic.”

I dont disagree with you that I’m being pedantic. But it’s really a bummer that you “disagree” about facts that are, well…facts.

You can’t just make up your own definitions of what Fair Use is, just because it’s convenient. The use case which you described (short, attributed excerpts of commercial media), and which you thought “pretty much defines the nature of Fair Use” is only “fair” from a non-legal, ethical standpoint. Only a bunghole of immense proportions would consider your actions to be “wrong” or worthy of moral judgement.

But that still doesn’t make it “Fair Use”, in the eyes of US Copyright Law.

Danny specifically voiced concerns about his Fair Use “rights” in constructing a demo reel using copyrighted material, and that is the question which should be addressed. I’m sorry if you took my correction of your misinterpretation of what “Fair Use” is as some kind of personal attack of your character or intellect. I certainly did not mean it as such. I have been following copyright & Fair Use issues as a bizarre hobby of mine for well over a decade, so I have a strong desire to correct (or at least be annoyed by) misinformation that is often given about these topics, because for content-creators like us, they are important topics to understand and not be wrong about…not unlike your (and my) disdain for people who throw around the term “LUT” without knowing what they really are.

[Marc Wielage]

Show me some case law to support your opinion.

[Danny Thompson]

The “four points” are critical, but each is open to some interpretation and has a degree of flexibility, and I haven’t even made the reel yet, so whether or not it’s Fair Use yet is hazy.

My understanding is that these things are decided case-to-case by the courts, and the likelihood of a case over someone’s reel ever getting within a mile of court house is zero.

But I am not a lawyer, just like yall.

Studio – eMac G4, 256mb ram, Final Cut DV
Mobile – IBM R50, 1024mb ram, 80gb Hitachi Travelstar ATA133 7200rpm hard drive