"FAIR USE vs. FARE USE"

Producers Guild of America

"FAIR USE vs. FARE USE"
The Boundaries of Legitimacy or Theft
in Using Other Artist's Work

a special joint Workshop from

PGA East Documentary and Non-Fiction
Committee

and

New Media Council East



Monday, December 15, 2008

7pm – 9pm

Whether you are doing a documentary film, non-fiction television, or a social network viral video or webisode, if you are using other people's copyrighted materials, this workshop is for you!

FAIR USE and LEGAL POLICY of Copyright Material: A workshop panel for PGA members *ONLY*
on its use in Film, Television and New Media
from one of the foremost experts in the field, DR. PETER JASZI

CASE STUDIES, and current application in recent Film, TV and On-line Video:

The Producers Guild of America New Media Council East and the PGA East Documentary and Non-Fiction Committee presents a workshop on the future of media policy, and the current changes in Copyright Law that effect the use of video, music and material choices all producers need and have wanted to choose to get their stories across, but have been held back because of the costs of clearances and the hesitancy of what is Fair Use and what is not. The advances in new technology also have created different ways material is used and these areas will be examined as well as the traditional role this material is used in Film and Television. Case studies will be discussed and members may bring up specific ways they are using copyrighted material and the accepted rights and clearances necessary, or NOT necessary, regarding E&O insurance, rights clearances costs, lengths of material accepted for use, and the interpretation of the law accepted in today's world, of the term "Fair Use".


The ability to easily create and share online video presents unprecedented opportunities for self-expression, but has at the same time generated significant confusion about what is permissable versus impermissable copying. How does one balance the rights of copyright holders and the rights of those who use content for new, valuable and expressive purposes.


Dr. Peter Jaszi having spent many years educating and speaking on "Fair Use" policies for Film and Television, has now turned his attention to Online video, as well.

Dr. Peter Jaszi, Professor of Law and Director of Intellectual Property Law Clinic at American University
Professor of Law, and Director of Intellectual Property Law Clinic at American University, Peter Jaszi has literally written the book on copyright and Fair Use.
www.centerforsocialmedia.org


Moderators:

Mark Marabella, President, MARABELLA PRODUCTIONS, Co-Chair of the Documentary and Non-Fiction Committee
Mark is an Emmy® nominated executive producer and founder of Marabella Productions. He has more than 15 years experience developing, writing, producing, and directing documentaries and television series. The company has produced more than 20 hours of primetime factual programming for the Discovery Channel, The History Channel, The Science Channel, and The National Geographic Channel.
Mark is the PGA East Co-Chair of the Documentary Committee.
www.marabellaproductions.com

Paul Waterman, President, COSMIC SCREEN, LLC; board delegate, PGA New Media Council
Paul Waterman is the founder and chief executive officer of Cosmic Screen, LLC, a global production company that specializes in original entertainment programming for digital media platforms. The company’s initial production, ‘7 Sins,’ is one of the first original HD web production made for the syndication market. Paul has produced a large body of live video and studio music productions, ranging from his work with NBC’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ and ‘Late Night with David Letterman’ to productions with Showtime and pay-per-view events with the Rolling Stones, acquiring the use of video segments. He is regarded as one of the industry’s premier performance rights negotiators, and has expanded this expertise into new media production rights management.
www.cosmicscreen.com


REFRESHMENTS WILL BE PROVIDED.

LOCATION:
HBO - Conference Room
1100 Avenue of the Americas
(Between 42nd and 43rd)
New York City


Space is *VERY* limited to 35 participants so a confirmed RSVP for this event is required.

MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY-MAKING IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Producers Guild of America
New Media Council East

Presents the
2008-2009 Panel and Salon Series

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

7pm – 9pm

MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY-MAKING IN THE 21ST CENTURY:
BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS, IT WILL BE OBSOLETE

The convergence of media and technology in the 21st century has led to such accelerated pace of change in the behaviors of consumers that both content producers and device manufacturers have had to adapt in nothing less than a paradigm-shift-per-day schedule. The men and women who help shape government policy for the U.S. media industry are facing enormous challenges in the development of regulations and frameworks for an industry whose audience has seemingly more control than ever before.

With a new administration entering the White House in January, 2009, and the looming February 17, 2009 digital t.v. switch-over upon us, the landscape for new media is exploding with opportunity – and potential policy headaches galore. From the future of the Internet and Net neutrality to open source development and content syndication and the battle over digital copyright, the environment in which content producers find themselves today is more weighted with intellectual property questions and policy issues than ever before.

The Producers Guild of America New Media Council East presents a snap-shot of the future of media policy, and the coming changes in Washington’s outlook on the role that new technology plays in media, with some of this country’s leading technology policy experts, including:

Eli M. Noam, Professor of Economics and Finance at Columbia Business School

Eli Noam has been Professor of Economics and Finance at Columbia Business School since 1976. In 1990, after having served for three years as Commissioner with the New York State Public Service Commission, he returned to Columbia. He is the Director of the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information. CITI is an independent university-based research center focusing on strategy, management, and policy issues in telecommunications, computing, and electronic mass media. Noam has published over 19 books and 400 articles in economic journals, law reviews, and interdisciplinary journals. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Justin Hughes, Professor of Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Professor Hughes teaches intellectual property (IP) and international trade at Cardozo School of Law in New York. Formerly a policy expert in the U.S. Department of Commerce (USPTO), his areas of expertise include domestic and international copyright, Internet and new technologies as they relate to intellectual property, trademarks, geographical indications, WTO and TRIPS issues, and intellectual property in developing countries. As Chairman of the Thomson Foundation for Film and Television Heritage, based in Paris, he is active in audiovisual preservation and conservation efforts. At Cardozo, Professor Hughes has been director of the law school’s intellectual property program since 2004.

Jonathan Askin, Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School
Jonathan Askin is a Professor at Brooklyn Law School, teaching Telecommunications, New Media and Internet Law. Jonathan is also the Founder and Director of the Brooklyn Law Incubator and Policy Clinic, designed to represent and advocate on behalf of Internet and new media startups and causes. Jonathan is also a communications, Internet and media attorney and consultant, representing clients on strategic business development and policy advocacy.
Jonathan is a recognized advocate, lobbyist and thought-leader for the competitive telecommunications, new media and Internet industries. He has sat on the boards of many recognized industry bodies, including the Universal Service Administrative Company and the North American Numbering Council.

Ray Beckerman, Partner, Ray Beckerman, PC
Ray Beckerman is the president of Ray Beckerman, PC, practicing complex commercial and copyright litigation. Additionally, he supervises litigations and other proceedings taking place in other geographical areas, advises businesses and not-for-profits, incorporates start-up entities, negotiates contracts, and assists in obtaining copyrights and trademarks.
In 2004 Ray became a 'blogger', first creating the blog "Ohio Election Fraud" relating to the 2004 presidential election in Ohio. In 2005 he created the blog "Recording Industry vs. The People," (http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com) which collects information about the copyright infringement litigations prosecuted by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) against owners of internet access accounts that are linked to peer-to-peer file sharing.

Moderator: Chris Pfaff, President, Chris Pfaff Tech/Media LLC; board delegate, PGA New Media Council
A board delegate of the PGA New Media Council since 2006, and a PGA NMC member since 2004, Chris Pfaff leads a consultancy – Chris Pfaff Tech/Media LLC – that represents some of the leading service providers, audio/video technology firms, networking vendors, and media companies in the world, from PRIMEDIA and Eastman Kodak to Cantor Telecom. A veteran of the venture world, Chris helped launch more than 20 ventures from the Lucent New Ventures Group, including iBiquity Digital; Flarion; Lucent Digital Video, and GeoVideo Networks, among others. In addition, he has helped launch AT&T’s Internet strategy; the Viacom New Media division of Viacom, Inc.; Sony Electronics’ Digital Betacam format, and Sharp Electronics’ LCD product division.

The New School
Theresa Lang Community and Student Center
55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor
between 5th an 6th Avenues, NYC
www.newschool.edu

Space is limited so an RSVP for this event is required. This is PGA Member event ONLY!

If you are interested in joining to attend this event and other great events please visit the PGA New Media Council http://www.pganewmedia.org

Previous events from our 2005-2008 event series can be accessed in both webcast and podcast format at: http://www.scribemedia.org/pga

For more information about ScribeStudio Productions, please visit: http://www.scribemedia.org.

Sony XDCAM EX In Depth

Abel Cine Tech, in association with the Producers Guild of America New Media Council and PostWorks, presents their second joint workshop, Sony XDCAM EX In Depth.

Click link to view invitation: http://www.abelcine.com/invites/

The Sony PMW-EX3 camcorder will be making its East Coast debut at this workshop.This new model adds more features and greater flexibility to the already successfulEX1 camcorder.

The EX3 adds an interchangeable 1/2" lens system and a hand holdable, ergonomic design to the already impressive specs of the EX1, a 3-chip 1/2" CMOS sensor that records1920x1080 native resolution HD images onto SxS PRO flash memory cards.

Learn about the new features of the EX3, and hear firsthand accounts form filmmakerswho have used Sony's revolutionary XDCAM EX format from production through post.

DATE: Saturday, June 28, 2008

LOCATION:
Abel Cine Tech
609 Greenwich St - 5th fl.
New York, NY 10014212-462-0100

TIME:
10:00 am - 12:35 pm, 1st session
1:30 pm - 4:05 pm, 2nd session

Please indicate which session you plan to attend. Your name will be on the list for thatsession at the door.

RSVP:
rsvp@abelcine.com

This is an invitation only event.
Admission is free, but space is limited.

To learn more about the Sony EX1, visit http://www.abelcine.com/store/product.php?productid=1000401

To learn more about the Sony EX3, visit http://www.abelcine.com/store/product.php?productid=1001002

Use the Force

All fans are equal but some are more equal than others. For any given property, you've got fans… and then you've got superfans. Superfans make up a small percentage of the audience, but can have an impact far greater than their numbers. They're a loyal band of dedicated individuals whose focus and intention can make extraordinary things happen. In cult media terms, they're the Jedis of the fan world. As a transmedia producer your job is to get them to use their power for good and keep them from going to the dark side.

Winning over superfans is the first step toward attracting a mass audience. "But beware. Anger, fear, aggression. The dark side are they." Avoid sparking these emotions at all costs. Honor and respect the property that they hold so dear. Do not underestimate the power of the dark side.

Jenkins: What are the risks involved in alienating the base of your audience?

Gomez: Franchises are built on the energy and loyalty of their hardcore fan bases. While these bases are often a fraction of the size of the total audience, they are indispensable, because they are vocal, passionate and active. A tiny fraction of the genre television series Jericho sent tons of jars of peanuts to the network that had just cancelled the program--moving them to reinstate the series. A small group of fans that gathered at conventions and shared amateur publications centered on the original Star Trek series managed to bridge the period between that series' cancellation and the Star Wars-inspired relaunch of the franchise in the late 1970s.

When the producers of the television series Enterprise publicly stated that the show was being designed for a much wider audience than previous incarnations of Star Trek, and exhibited this intention by altering the shows music cues, pandering to sexual titillation and (perhaps most egregiously) ignoring at will the established continuity and thematic tone of the fictional universe, the result was a gradual erosion of the franchise's core fan base. Without the approval and loyalty of "Trekkers" there would be no reason for the greater audience to stick around.

The original Crow graphic novel and feature film generated an extremely loyal fan base. But with the second feature, producers chose to ignore the fictional rules and tenets set down by the original work, and so the franchise experienced the first of what would become many fractures. Dubbing the property an "anthology franchise" that could be wildly altered based on the vision of individual artists and storytellers, the producers continued to build and deconstruct The Crow into smaller and smaller pieces, each with its own dwindling following. They chose to place the needs of their artists above the integrity of the mythology of the universe--a mythology that the fan base deeply cared about. The property now languishes in limbo.

Jenkins: What do you see as the downsides of generating such passionate consumers?

Gomez: On the other hand, passion can be blind and judgmental. Fan zeal can threaten to "box in" a property, potentially stunting its growth. It can generate negative "buzz" around a project, which can leak into media coverage and plant seeds of doubt in the general audience base. For example, Warner Brother's upcoming "Justice League" feature film has been the target of fan criticism around story and casting issues. Since then, script and casting choices have been amended. Whether or not this will help the production remains to be seen.

Jenkins: As some of these genres have become more commercially viable, the San Diego Comic Con has emerged as an important media marketplace. Can you speak to the role this gathering plays in the marketing of your properties?

Gomez: Comic Con International in San Diego plays a more and more pivotal role in heralding, marketing and launching new genre efforts. In the midst of negotiating with executives at The Walt Disney Company for a job working with one of their largest franchises, Starlight Runner took them on a tour of the Comic Con exhibition floor. Many of the "worlds" we helped to develop were on spectacular display: Mattel's Hot Wheels universe, the fantasy realms of Magic: The Gathering, high priced back issues of Valiant Comics, and the announcements for new video games and comic books based on Turok and our own "Team GoRizer" at Disney's own booth! Suffice to say, a deal was quickly sealed!

Each year, Comic Con attracts well over 100,000 "gatekeepers," fans of niche, cult or genre entertainment who make it their business to spread the word about the newest and coolest content to their friends and acquaintances both in their home communities and on the Internet. It used to be that one of these gatekeepers would have a circle of five to ten contacts back home to whom he or she would convey what was best about the convention. Now in the age of social networking and pop culture web portals, that number has multiplied exponentially. Add to this the mass media coverage given to Comic Con and content producers can reach untold millions through it.

previous Jeff Gomez post

Jeff Gomez (jeff@starlightrunner.com), is the CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, Inc., a developer and producer of highly successful trans-media projects whose clients include The Walt Disney Company, 20th Century Fox, the Coca-Cola Company, Mattel and Hasbro.