Television Biopics

IEEE MultiMedia, 2020

Article 25fa End User Agreement This publication is distributed under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act. This article entitles the maker of a short scientific work funded either wholly or partially by Dutch public funds to make that work publicly available for no consideration following a reasonable period of time after the work was first published, provided that clear reference is made to the source of the first publication of the work. Research outputs of researchers employed by Dutch Universities that comply with the legal requirements of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, are distributed online and free of cost or other barriers in institutional repositories. Research outputs are distributed six months after their first online publication in the original published version and with proper attribution to the source of the original publication.

2012

This thesis critically appraises the exceptions to the principle of autonomy in documentary credits. In appraising the exceptions, the central theme pursued is to address the question whether the application of the exceptions to the principle of autonomy is satisfactory. In addressing this general question, the study pays special attention to English law on documentary credits. However, the thesis also looks at the comparable position in other common law jurisdictions, such as United States, Canada, Australia, Singapore, and Malaysia. Recently, in the different jurisdictions, opinion has not been consistent on what constitutes exceptions to the principle of autonomy in letters of credit. Apart from the Acknowledgement This thesis would not have been possible without the goodwill and assistance of a number of people and organisation. My greatest debt is owed to my supervisor, Professor Nelson Enonchong. Special thanks must go to Mr Keith Uff for the painstaking and insightful corrections on this thesis. To Dr Djakhongir Saidov, I must say thank you for your support. I also would like to thank Professor Sarah Dromgoole for her encouragement. So many offered support over the years that I cannot thank you all. But I have had the good fortune to work with some good friends whose careful thinking undoubtedly influenced my thinking in the course of this research. In this respect, my gratitude goes to Uche Chigbu who since meeting him in the summer of 2006 has remained very helpful both in my personal life and professional development. To Kris, your wife, I say thank you. Ebenezer Adodo has put up with more than most friends would in going through some of the ideas in this thesis and offering helpful comments. For your effort, I must also say thank you. To the University of Birmingham, the part funding provided towards this research is fully appreciated. Lastly, to all members of my family especially my parents, Chima and Chinyere Amaefule for their financial support, love and encouragement throughout my life and more particularly during the period of this PhD.

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal, 2007

MR. ZHANG: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Copyright Panel. My name is Steven Zhang and I am the Symposium Editor of the Journal. This year our panel will be discussing the fair use issue—its application, limitations, and future. We have a wonderful panel here. I would like to thank everyone here, and also everyone who has been supporting us since June in the preparation of this Symposium. I would also like to thank Professor Hansen, who is really the mastermind behind all this. Without him, we could not ...

2014

Processes of creative adaptation no longer fit traditional, culturally sanctioned forms, like commercial book-to-film adaptation, or vice versa. Meanwhile, internet users are demonstrating how noncommercial, creative text adaptation using video technology has become an everyday art form, a skill set, a form of communication, and a means of cultural commentary. Internet video adapters physically perform in their own videos and they create videos that work performatively online. Negotiating the slippery spaces between copyright, creativity, and cultural commentary, these creators adapt videos in myriad ways, and find spaces to share their adaptations online, despite (for most) a lack of financial return for their creative work. Yet, little scholarship addresses this type of online adaptation. Current studies of internet video memes do not explicitly address how memes work as adaptation or as performance. We are also at a loss for theories about adaptation and performance that serve contemporary, internet-literate publics. In this dissertation, I explore how traditional notions of the processes and products of adaptation are changing. I argue that internet video memes and "sweded" videos are performances of adaptation. Focusing on four case studies, each of which represents types of adaptations that do not fit well into current adaptation theories, I develop a typology for online video-to-video adaptation that could be useful in multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary academic and/or public conversations. Using this typology, I map some of the (mostly uncharted) terrain of online video adaptation performances, elucidate the limits of and expand upon contemporary theories of adaptation, and clarify some major problems and paradoxes of current US copyright law, as it pertains to online video adaptation. Throughout, I show how the adaptations in this study create, sustain, and/or upend contemporary culture, concluding that most (if not all) online video-to-video adaptation trends carry creative potential, along with potential ethical quandaries. CHAPTER 1: 2003, three of Raza's classmates "discovered" the video at school and uploaded it to the (then popular) file-sharing network Kazaa. Soon after, other internet users began uploading new versions of Raza's video, with added light saber and sound effects, to various other file-sharing networks. These adaptations of Raza's video included (among others) a version where Raza is seen fighting his own "clone," a version where Raza is labeled a "drunken Jedi," a version that places Raza in a canoe, and a "Matrix" version that uses slow motion video effects. The videos were initially circulated several years before YouTube existed, and thus "the Star Wars Kid phenomenon may be seen as one of the first instances of a massively consumed online video, a forebear[er] to a now robust online video culture supporting a much deeper dimension for regular feedback. .. and parody" (ibid.). This video was not just "consumed," though. The Star Wars Kid video was a generative phenomenon that inspired a large number of video adaptations. While my brother and I still communicate through video sharing, we now have a wider range of videos to choose from. Feedback and parody, meanwhile, are just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of how online video adaptation has progressed over the last decade. From creatively but "incorrectly" subtitling movies, to remaking and sharing five-minute-no-budget versions of movies, to performing parodies of viral videos, to creating musical remixes of local news footage, internet users are demonstrating how noncommercial, creative adaptation using video and internet technology has become a form of communication, an everyday art form, a skill set, and a means of socio-political involvement. These video creators physically perform in their own videos and they make videos that work performatively online. Negotiating the slippery spaces between copyright, creativity, and cultural commentary, they adapt nontraditional texts in myriad ways, and then find spaces to share these adaptations online, despite (for most) a lack of financial return for their creative work.

Digital Media and Documentary, 2018

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

These days, it's inevitable: writing and composition teachers are becoming media literacy teachers. As the Internet and computing technologies have created new forms of expression and communication that are multivocal, multimodal, collaborative, public, instantaneously accessible, and sometimes anonymously authored, anyone in the business of helping students develop the capacity for self-expression and communication bumps into key concepts of media literacy education. As Brian Morrison (qtd.

Information, Communication & Society, 2015

This study, based on a survey of 489 documentary filmmakers, is a case study in copyright policy in and through practice. It assesses the changes in documentary production practice around clearance of copyrighted material since the creation of the Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in fair use in 2005. Fair use, an exotic and occasional feature of documentary film in 2004, has become well-known and commonly employed. Creative options for filmmakers concerning use of third-party material have dramatically improved with changes in norms after the issuing of the Statement. Attitudes about fair use are strongly associated with free expression and creative opportunity, and vary with experience. Where filmmakers have changed work because of copyright concerns, they themselves rather than any gatekeeper have made the decision to do so. Where change is associated with fair use, risk is a common concern. Newer filmmakers are more likely to support use of copyrighted material to make new work, but less likely to know about fair use, and also more likely to have experienced takedowns online. Both education about and experience with fair use appear to have an effect on practice. Filmmakers continue to lack reliable information on the actual risk landscape, and about fair use on digital platforms.

Copyright under COVID-19. Special Teaching Media Dossier, coed. with Brendan Kredell, Journal for Cinema and Media Studies (JCMS), March 2021, 2021

A world wide pandemic and the abrupt shift to online teaching in March 2020 for many higher education institutions have made visible wider legal and copyright issues that have been emerging with the accelerating expansion of digital subscription platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ and Peacock. Catalyzed by COVID-19, the increasingly digital-only sites for distributing media have prompted new questions and problems of access for many faculty and students: What happens when faculty's libraries or institutions cannot license titles on Kanopy or Swank? What are the issues of equity and access raised when these titles are only available through commercial streamers like Amazon or Disney+ that require students to subscribe to multiple providers? And what happens when some films and television programs are only available in physical form on DVD? COVID has forced us all to consider how we move a pedagogical practice built around in-person learning into the online arena. For film and media faculty in particular, this also raises important questions about the legal scaffolding that our teaching is built upon. Programs already rip short film clips for teaching purposes, a practice expressly protected in the United States under an exemption by the Library of Congress to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Now many of us are considering the fair use arguments articulated by Patricia Aufderheide and the Center for Media and Social Impact for making entire feature films available online. In the United States, how have faculty approached the legal issues of copyright and compliance with federal statutes including the DMCA and the TEACH Act? What has been the institutional approach across other national and legal contexts to these legal and risk management issues? For Special Issue Copyright under COVID-19. Special Teaching Media Dossier

Explanation Points, 2019