selling AMVs?

[zenmetsu]

dammit, vic.. the sarcasm is unnecessary. you're smart enough to know that it'd only take one company to throw a hissy fit over copyright issues to shut us all down and shut the org down and shut all the amv contests at cons down. i don't want to ever see that happen, so i think we shouldn't do anything that'd give them a reason to throw a hissy fit.

[Drawshot]

Good idea. Better get rid of this site. It gets a couple thousand hits per day and basically acts as a nexus to hundreds of thousands of these illegal videos, not to mention encourages the production of new ones!

He is not suggesting that it is a good idea... but it is a very real possibility if the copyright holders are forced to defend their copyrights. The AMVorg would be a big juicy target for their lawyers. It sounds like you haven't even read completely through Zenmetsu's posts, and you are completely ignoring how copyright laws work.

Making AMVs with copyrighted material could be considered just bending copyright laws. But, producing a product and selling it (for profit or not) is blatently breaking copyright laws. Essentially, your DVD falls in the same category as bootleg t-shirts and posters.

[anneke]

This is the same thing that happened to me when I brought up the arguement long ago. The people (like Vic) who are selling DVDs, see nothing wrong in doing so and they don't give a damn about the AMV community or how their actions may affect or destroy the community. They won't listen, and it's these people that will cause the downfall of the AMV community (along with losing the ability to distribute AMVs or show them at conventions, etc...)

As for a-m-v.org. It is a big target. It can still be a gathering place for AMV creators, as they are not illegal to make (in the privacy of your own home). However the catelogue would have to go. I'm sure they would want to get rid of the forums as well, because people could use them to talk about how to distribute their AMVs 'illegally'.

We'll be left with wonderful How-To Guides, and Interviews with creators, and that's it.

Anneke

[Vlad G Pohnert]

This is the same thing that happened to me when I brought up the arguement long ago. The people (like Vic) who are selling DVDs, see nothing wrong in doing so and they don't give a damn about the AMV community or how their actions may affect or destroy the community. They won't listen, and it's these people that will cause the downfall of the AMV community (along with losing the ability to distribute AMVs or show them at conventions, etc...)

As for the Org. It is a big target. It can still be a gathering place for AMV creators, as they are not illegal to make (in the privacy of your own home). However the catelogue would have to go. I'm sure they would want to get rid of the forums as well, because people could use them to talk about how to distribute their AMVs 'illegally'.

We'll be left with wonderful How-To Guides, and Interviews with creators, and that's it.

Anneke

Not quite, We can talk all we want and list everything in a catalog. It's the act of doing the distribution that is illegal. The only concerns that might occure are if the site hotes all the videos. I realize that's what golden doughnut is all about, so if it goes ahead, that's when the site is actually starting to take risks. Otherwise, we are not doing anything illegal here since there is no physical evidence of distribution from this site....

Vlad

[MistyCaldwell]

And about the org...I don't think it is that big of a threat to copyrights (well, no more than convention showings) since there is no profit being made by anyone. The golden donut is pure donation based but available to everyone, which I think, was the smartest way to make something like that available.

You get things like ebay where people sell amvs and dvds and then maybe it's a deal. Especially if there starts to be a big demand for such things.

Some of my most treasured audio video material is in pretty modest packaging. I have a ton of vhs tapes with 80's and 90's cartoons that would never hold up the couch They are gold to me. And the backups up the many many amvs I have are on various label cds in a big black case, and treated with the utmost respect because it's what plays on the compy that makes me smile, brought to me by the magic of 1 and 0.

[VicBond007]

Alright Alright. Just trying to interject a little humor in between shifts when I don't have time to spew out a fully thought out post. I'm done now.

Dan, I understand and appreciate your stance on the issue and totally respect you for developing a well thought-out opinion on an issue that affects everyone despite the fact that I'm essentially the "problem" here in this discussion. The industry isn't going to care about what I'm doing right now because:
A) I'm not stocking store shelves with my "product". I'm distributing it in places where music videos are not only accepted, but rewarded.
B) Cons have been giving prizes, many of them CASH prizes, for winning AMVs for years. There's always been a big public display of this and it's no secret. The fact of the matter is that this is happening at a convention, and not on national television where the general public can give a damn.
C) The practice of making and publicly selling fan doujinshi has been around since I can remember. Many don't even acknowledge their original sources. If such a practice is acceptable, then my AMVs are no different. The industry has more important things to worry about, like people bootlegging entire episodes, yet they don't even do anything about that. Bootleggers taunt license-holders by plastering their email and web addresses all over their work, making them easy to find, yet the industry has no interest in prosecuting even those that are DIRECTLY costing them sales, let alone some fanboy distributing fan-crap.

Do I understand where you're coming from? Yes. Am I going to stop? No. Don't like it? Don't buy it. I'm not scamming anyone. I have a website (and bandwidth is not cheap!) where you can download all you want. Although, I wouldn't advise it, because remember, it's illegal for me to distribute them at all isn't it?

But that's not the basis of this thread. You have no problem with my DVD, you just have a problem with the money changing hands. I could lie and say it was all to cover production costs. Hell, if I didn't know people that could get me cheap DVDs, then $7 wouldn't even make BACK production costs! But I'm not. I'm honest like that, and that seems to be getting me into more trouble as quite a few of you take offense to the $2 I make on a sale. Am I greedy? Am I collecting for expenses I shouldn't be? Yes. $12,000 for a computer is excessive, and I decided to spend that kind of money over the years, and I don't deserve anything from anybody apparently because this is my "hobby". Well even the hobbyist strives for his hard efforts to be rewarded, and if $2 is too much to ask, I've got plenty of crappy free CDs to give out.

[Anonyma]

Making AMVs with copyrighted material could be considered just bending copyright laws.

Making AMVs is perfectly legal, it falls within fair use rules, showing it to friends you know is even legal, but distribution and theater style showings are where we get into the grey area.

[zenmetsu]

i think we're nearing the point where we'll be agreeing to disagree. which is fine by me, i'm getting tired of finding new ways to make the same argument. ^^;

but lemme respond to just a few things:

A) I'm not stocking store shelves with my "product". I'm distributing it in places where music videos are not only accepted, but rewarded.

yes, however, it would only take one industry rep attending the con to be angry at you, and the shit would hit the fan.

B) Cons have been giving prizes, many of them CASH prizes, for winning AMVs for years. There's always been a big public display of this and it's no secret. The fact of the matter is that this is happening at a convention, and not on national television where the general public can give a damn.

first, i've never seen a cash prize given out. i've seen little dealers room vouchers being given as prizes, as well as sacks of loot donated by dealers. but then again, i never claim to be an expert on what's done at every con. second, the general public probably wouldn't give a damn, but again an industry rep attending the con just might.

C) The practice of making and publicly selling fan doujinshi has been around since I can remember. Many don't even acknowledge their original sources. If such a practice is acceptable, then my AMVs are no different. The industry has more important things to worry about, like people bootlegging entire episodes, yet they don't even do anything about that. Bootleggers taunt license-holders by plastering their email and web addresses all over their work, making them easy to find, yet the industry has no interest in prosecuting even those that are DIRECTLY costing them sales, let alone some fanboy distributing fan-crap.

well, let's get one thing straight. fan doujinshi is a total other matter entirely. it's completely different from amvs because it only uses the likenesses and names of a company's characters, and not official artwork or video material copyrighted by the company. artwork itself (even in something like a doujinshi that contains characters not owned by the artist) is copyrighted by the artist as soon as it is drawn. i should know this, i'm a comic artist (albeit an out-of-practice one nowdays). artists are very protective of their work, they know more about copyrights than your average amv authors.

oh, and i agree fully that the industry has more important people to go after before they turn on the amv community, but i'd worry about the company simply getting "angry" that their copyrighted material is being used without their permission and finding the amv community an easy target. and besides... we amv authors do sound like we claim our videos to really be "our own" when we know we don't have the rights to the material. that's sure to make somebody out there mad.

Do I understand where you're coming from? Yes. Am I going to stop? No. Don't like it? Don't buy it. I'm not scamming anyone. I have a website (and bandwidth is not cheap!) where you can download all you want. Although, I wouldn't advise it, because remember, it's illegal for me to distribute them at all isn't it?

people do as they please, and it's not my place to stop them. the only reason i would actually desire to stop you instead of simply looking the other way is because, well, i guess i do fear someone in the industry getting pissy about everything. and they wouldn't just hit up the few people who brought the "problem" to their attention, they'd hit up the whole community. it's a case of the few ruining it for the many, that's what worries me.

having a website where you can download a company's copyrighted material doesn't make it any less wrong to sell it. though i know what you're getting at, that it's entirely the buyer's decision to spend money on your product since you offer it for free online; thereby putting the blame on the buyers instead of yourself. and i know full well that bandwidth is not cheap. i know my way around webdesign and webhosting as well. i was lucky enough to be on keenspace when my website was using 18 gigs a month. and that was for images that were around 50k each, not 50-meg mpegs or anything!

these days, my amvs are on a site that i run along with two friends. this past month was the first time that we've hit our bandwidth limit and had to pull all our videos. bandwidth is a bitch. i'm sure you dump a lot of money into your website. you dump a lot of money into this hobby. but unfortunately, this hobby is on shaky legal ground, and therefore you can't make any money back on it. but i guess saying "can't" is moot, since you're proving that you can, though it's far more illegal and risky than free distribution.

But that's not the basis of this thread. You have no problem with my DVD, you just have a problem with the money changing hands. I could lie and say it was all to cover production costs. Hell, if I didn't know people that could get me cheap DVDs, then $7 wouldn't even make BACK production costs! But I'm not. I'm honest like that, and that seems to be getting me into more trouble as quite a few of you take offense to the $2 I make on a sale. Am I greedy? Am I collecting for expenses I shouldn't be? Yes. $12,000 for a computer is excessive, and I decided to spend that kind of money over the years, and I don't deserve anything from anybody apparently because this is my "hobby". Well even the hobbyist strives for his hard efforts to be rewarded, and if $2 is too much to ask, I've got plenty of crappy free CDs to give out.

you basically admit what you're doing is wrong here. and don't get me wrong, i appreciate your honesty, because if you had actually said that the whole price was for production costs i would have laughed.

i was under the impression that your hard efforts have been rewarded. you spend all this money and all this time on amvs, and you're quite possibly the most popular amv author around here. i hear your fanboys and fangirls speak your name in a whisper when any of your videos are shown at a con. so don't think that all your efforts are in vain just because i'm trying to convince you that unauthorized sale of anything containing copyrighted material is wrong.

but really, if you want monetary compensation for the time and money you spend on your hobby, then... maybe you should have picked a hobby that doesn't violate copyright laws?

[Nightowl]

You may not copy, reproduce, distribute, publish, display, perform, modify, create derivative works, transmit, or in any way exploit any such content, nor may you distribute any part of this content over any network, including a local area network, sell or offer it for sale, or use such content to construct any kind of database.

This, my friends, is a VERY typical copyright agreement placed upon media. This includes video, print, film, text, WHATEVER. MEDIA in general. Of course, this is just a cute little quote. I have more.

Like, for instance, the only argument we, as AMV creators could make: the Fair Use Doctrine.

Sec. 107. - Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include -

(1)

the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2)

the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3)

the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4)

the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.


The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors

Read it how you will. The Fair Use Doctrine was created so that teachers could educate their students by using certain media. This also gives them the right to reproduce said media. Of course, as any good teacher knows, this doctrine rarely works. Sure, most professors will xerox case studies or paintings or whatever they may need to use. Film professors will make copies of tapes. And no one will care. But the second they put it into an educational book - even if it's not for profit - they need to get permissions. The Fair Use Doctrine is for the classroom. Any first year desk clerk can tell you that.

Here's a great quote:

"Fair use is better described as a shadowy territory whose boundaries are disputed, more so now that it includes cyberspace than ever before. In a way, it's like a no-man's land. Enter at your own risk."

Here's another quote, regarding actual copyright:

"Owners have exclusive rights to make copies, create derivative works, distribute, display and perform works publicly."

"If the law protects a work you wish to use, you must ask for permission from the copyright owner unless your planned use is covered by one of the law's exemptions, such as fair use."

Exclusive. That doesn't mean YOU.

And AMVs are NOT an exemption.

Everything about them is illegal. If you have a good lawyer, and you're dokidoki, MAYBE you can argue parody or satire - many video art people have done this in the past. But then the prosecutor would say "but the fact that he/she ripped or copied DVDs or VHS tapes in the first place with the intent of re-editing the footage sullies the entire project."

And that prosecutor would be right.

No matter how you cut it, we're all breaking the copyright law. But you no what? NO ONE CARES. It would cost more to take ANY of us to court than it is to make two fucking dollars off of a DVD. It isn't cost effective. That goes for the RIAA as well. They would lose money if they took any one of us to court.

We aren't rebels. We aren't revolutionaries. We're a bunch of artistic geeks doing something similar for whatever reason we come up with. At the moment, no one cares. When we begin selling AMVs in Best Buy, then yes, someone will knock at your door.

Until that time comes, everyone, quit your whining. We're all "breaking the law." Anyone who says "Well I'm breaking the law less" is simply a hypocrite. Everyone, this debate is stupid, so shut up already.

-N

[dokool]

I'm just gonna make one big-ass post as to my opinion on all of this.

1. Personally, I disagree with what Vic did.

I just don't think it's necessary. If they like your videos enough, then they'll seek you out and see if you want a copy. Or you can sell your DVD through your studio's website, and tell people to go to the website. Shameless self-promotion is one thing, trying to sell something that you might not have the right to sell is another.


2. "At Cost" is the work that the AMVer wants to put into his CD/DVD, not the bare minimum (i.e. blank and sharpie)

I, personally, print out labels to every CD. Never used a sharpie, except for the first 3 or 4 CDs I ever burned. I like the look of labels, especially good ones. If you want to buy jewel cases or DVD keep-cases, print out labels and inserts, and make it look good, than by god, that's your right. As much of a disposable nation as we are, we'd still like our disposables to look damned good. Sure, as cheap as buying in bulk is, it's money I'd still like to make back, but not make a profit on.


3. Let's get it out on the table, this is all about ego

Not distributing your work, not having fun, but ego. Sure, you want your AMVs to be seen by the masses. You put effort into them, god dammit, and they should be seen! However, it's an ego boost when someone sees it and likes it. It's a bigger ego boost when you burn a few CD-Rs, sharpie them, and give them out to interested parties. It's a big-ass ego boost when people are willing to hand over a few bucks for a DVD with fully-animated menus and buttons that took half a week to make, regardless of the fact that there's only three AMVs on the damned thing. So the entire act is pretty much one big ego stroke-a-thon. I have no problem with that, and I don't see why anyone else should. We're artists, our egos must be satisfied =)


4. Legal Issues - No Worries

Sure, this is a brash statement to make, but I agree with what's been said on this thread already. The anime industry won't go after AMVs, because we aren't causing HARDLY as much harm as illegal fan-subbers or bootleggers are. I've done two AMVs, both from Evangelion, which total about 6:50. Numbers roughly out of my ass (26 eps @ 23m, D&R @ 70m, EoE @ 90m) show that the entire Evangelion series is about 758m. Thus, my AMVs count for about 0.9% of the series. Even less, since there are clips I used in both videos. If someone wants to buy them, they'll most likely already be familiar with NG:E, and most likely will already own the series in one form or another. Buying an AMV disc causes about as much harm to the anime industry as buying a doujinshi, and unless the anime industry really wants to piss people off by going after both groups of creators, they'll do nothing.

In addition, Nightowl's post is dead on. This is what happens when I take a while to write a post, more posts get put up and I have to decide whether or not to react to them.


5. What have I learned by reading this thread?

First, if I win at AB2K3 and get to make a speech, I'll thank the fans, thank the creators, and pimp the website. That's more than enough.

Second, I admit that I'll probably bring DVDs to the con with the intention of distribution. I'll put a price tag on them, that probably will be less than "At-Cost." I may burn and label a bunch of CDs to give away to people who either don't have DVD players, don't have the change, or feel morally conflicted. I may ask for donations. If an ADV (or, for that matter, a rep that holds the rights to any anime I may use in an AMV by then) asks, they get a free copy with some extra grovelling thrown in.

And that's the way it should be.[/i]