[Peter Ralph]

I do like Doug, follow the invite. But I use first names only. Firstly beacuse the less text the less chance of a mistake, secondly because if I do show the dvd as a demo privacy is maintained.

[Peter Ralph]

Kyle – you believe that a judge would criminalize a citizen, and conceivably send him to prison, for commissioning a video of his wedding – I respectfully disagree.

Your contention that parody has always been protected by fair use is flat wrong – in 1993 the 2nd circuit court of appeal held that 2livecrew’s parody of Pretty Woman was illegal. The Supreme Court reversed the decision the following year. 11 years is a long time but “always”?

Sarcasm? I like the sound of that, but again I think you’ve got it wrong.

In the future, maybe sarcasm will be be included as fair use (I can’t see how personally) – certainly the courts continue to expand the fair use doctrine year by year. Will it be extended to cover wedding videography? Certainly not unless someone institutes a suit, and so far no-one has done that. Can it really be, as you imply, that no-one in the recording industry has ever seen a wedding video?

You certainly claim a more restrictive interpretation of fair use than either the legislature or the judiciary:

“Although the courts have considered and ruled upon the fair use doctrine over and over again, no real definition of the concept has ever emerged. Indeed, since the doctrine is an equitable rule of reason, no generally applicable definition is possible, and each case raising the question must be decided on its own facts……
The statement of the fair use doctrine in section 107 offers some guidance to users in determining when the principles of the doctrine apply. However, the endless variety of situations and combinations of circumstances that can rise in particular cases precludes the formulation of exact rules in the statute. The bill endorses the purpose and general scope of the judicial doctrine of fair use, but there is no disposition to freeze the doctrine in the statute, especially during a period of rapid technological change. Beyond a very broad statutory explanation of what fair use is and some of the criteria applicable to it, the courts must be free to adapt the doctrine to particular situations on a case-by-case basis….the works and uses to which the doctrine of fair use is applicable are as broad as the copyright law itself”

excerpts are from house report no.94-1476 dealing with section 107 (the fair use section) of the 1976 Copyright Act

[Peter Ralph]

does that mean I don’t have to send you a check?

🙂

thanks for taking the time Chris I appreciate it

[Peter Ralph]

no – the lady is not really confident using the system she needs to check everything in WMP before uploading it. I tried cleaner again and tweaking the settings the video looks ok – but the audio sounds as if its running at 10% speed or something – very slurred can’t make out a single work – but as far as I can tell the audio is running at the correct speed – just very distorted. Any ideas? Any settings I might have missed?

also cleaner takes 10x longer than compressor –

strange that QT can’t open the output from compressor2 – although compressor2 is way the worst upgrade I have ever come across

[Peter Ralph]

Thanks Chris – I use compressor 1.2 so didn’t see the option in compressor2. However when I switch to compressor 2 and check the audio option in extras I get a .mts output file which QT can’t open.

I dug out cleaner and did get an .mpg output file which QT could open but the pic contained a lot of artifacts and the audio sounded half speed.

Has anyone successfully created a muxed mpeg2/1 file using compressor?

[Peter Ralph]

yes i added the .wav extension. Interestingly when I open the file without the extension in QT the QT window adds it for me so in the QT player window the heading is FILE.wav even though on the desktop is just FILE.

[Peter Ralph]

Matte – this subject has been done to death many times on this forum, just do a search to find out more than you would ever want to know about my take on wedding video and copyright.

3 things:

To understand fair use you must understand the difference between equity and common law. Fair use is an equitable doctrine, and the courts have consistently resisted all attempts by the legislature to limit its application. It is wrong to assume that the copyright act represents the final word on this issue.

Many years ago there was legitimate doubt as to wether or not fair use could be applied in commercial uses. Supreme court decisions in Mad magazine vs Walt Disney, and 2 Live Crew vs Roy Orbison (the “Pretty Woman” case) have clarified this issue. You can claim fair use protection for commercial productions.

I believe that including recorded music in a wedding video is covered by fair use. Taking an unrelated piece of music and plastering it over the wedding video for dramatic effect is just as clearly not covered by fair use. Here the case in point falls between the two, hence my proviso. And yes I believe that a judge in adjudicating an equitable remedy would be concerned about where the music came from, and who suggested its use.

[Peter Ralph]

you are probably ok using music supplied by the client – its not quite as straightforward as including the live music of the event in the video, but it’s a lot more defensible that slapping some movie soundtrack over the live audio.

[Peter Ralph]

no

[Peter Ralph]

just regular music tracks from CDs that were played through a soundsystem outside. I have the CDs but other than adding sound effects have not been successful in making them sound as if they were recorded outside.