Creating a bill that would make what we do legal.

[gotegenks]

In my government class we're doing a project where we create a legislation and send it to another school for them to vote on blablabla. The other two people in my group don't really care about what we do so i thought i'd make it a little fun (for me anyway)

anyway, do my homework for me, how would you guys make a bill that made our harmless videos legal without destroying the music or anime business entirely
(not that our videos do that but the laws i've been coming up with would probably have this side effect...unfortunately)

[Kionon]

Right the fair use doctrine into actual law? Making only wholesale copying and distribution of copyrighted material illegal, while derivative and educational uses would be legal. Not terribly complex.

[Kionon]

Bah, edit button. Write, not right. Although right sorta works in the sense of "give right to."

[BasharOfTheAges]

You can always start by reading this: http://remix.lessig.org/

It's all kinda pointless (and aggravating) if you have to ignore the reality of plutocracy though.

[Dark Lord of Debate]

Hey funny you should mention this. I recently wrote a law review article that I am working on getting published, which discusses the legal difficulties faced by AMV creators (and fan-made media creators in general), and makes a few specific proposals for expressly protecting things like AMVs as fair use. You might find it useful for your school project. The abstract is posted below, and you can read the full paper here.

Culture of the Future: Adapting Copyright Law to Accommodate Fan-Made Derivative Works in the Twenty-First Century
By Patrick McKay
Regent University School of Law
December 18, 2010

Abstract:
Fan-made derivative works based on works of popular culture have a growing importance in twenty-first century culture, and in fact represent the rebirth of popular folk culture in America after a century of being submerged beneath commercial mass-media cultural products. The Internet has enabled what scholar Lawrence Lessig calls a “read/write” culture where ordinary Internet users are empowered to become active creators of culture rather than mere passive consumers. Yet if this exciting trend is to continue, the copyright laws of the twentieth-century must adapt to accommodate the possibilities of the twenty-first.

This Article describes the importance of amateur fan-made derivative works in the new folk culture of the twenty-first century, and demonstrates how this culture is under attack by the creators of the popular works it pays tribute to. It describes how overreaching copyright claims by media companies cast a considerable chilling effect on vibrant new art forms such as fan fiction, fan-made videos, and virtual worlds. Finally, this Article argues that the Copyright Act must be amended to (1) explicitly clarify that noncommercial, transformative works are fair use, (2) ban the use of the DMCA takedown process and automated copyright filters to block this type of content, and (3) provide real penalties to deter copyright owners from abusing copyright law to suppress legitimate follow-on creativity.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Yet if this exciting trend is to continue, the copyright laws of the twentieth-century must adapt to accommodate the possibilities of the twenty-first.

What organization is this that you're writing for? Time cops?

[Dark Lord of Debate]

I wrote it for my law school's law review. Every US law school publishes a scholarly journal with articles discussing different topics, and it's meant to be published either in my school's law review or another one.

And no, not the time cops. It's more about changing laws now to work better in the future than going back in time and changing the laws in the past. =)

[Fryslayer Productions]

I'm not sure how the argument works in courts and on most sites, however, Fair Use works great for disputing Claims on Youtube. I have cleared three claims so far, working on number four. Most music groups are reasonable about our art. Warner music Group used to be really harsh, but they HAVE lightened up a bit.

[gotegenks]

That's pretty cool DLOD, i wish i wasn't finished with my project because i totally have a new train of thought to work off of from that, but still a good read.

[Khat17]

This would be very good. I have 2 vids on YouTube that were removed for infringement and I've made numerous attempts to contact the authors of the anime or the station with the license and have had absolutely no reply for years - and I've tried sending multiple times. If this was up then we all would be much happier.