‘The People’s Joker’ and the Perils of Playing With a Studio’s Copyright; The New York Times, April 1, 2024

 Eric Grode, The New York Times; ‘The People’s Joker’ and the Perils of Playing With a Studio’s Copyright

"The Joker may be the purview of DC Comics, not Marvel, but the fear of running afoul of copyright laws was no less of a concern.

“I kept myself very informed legally in terms of what qualifies as a parody and what fair use really is,” said Drew, referring to the legal doctrine that allows artists to use copyrighted material without permission or consequence depending on the circumstances. The “People’s Joker” poster calls it “A Fair Use Film by Vera Drew.”

Rebecca Tushnet, a professor at Harvard Law School and an expert in fair use, said artistic works find themselves on safer legal ground when they comment on the original material in a transformative way.

“Favored use is critical in that it performs an interpretation,” said Tushnet, who has not seen the film but was willing to discuss it in the abstract. “A parody is the classic example, but it doesn’t have to be funny. If the metaphor that the Joker represents here is a different metaphor, then it might well fall under the category of transformative fair use."”

Episode 709: The Quiet Old Lady Who Whispers "Fair Use"; Planet Money, NPR, 7/1/16

[Podcast] Planet Money, NPR; Episode 709: The Quiet Old Lady Who Whispers "Fair Use" :

"...[A]fter writing his own Goodnight Moon spinoff, Keith wanted to know: Could he sell it? Is that even legal?

Today on the show, we dive into the world of copyright and fair use. Just where is the line between inspiration and stealing?"

Out of a Rare Super Bowl I Recording, a Clash With the N.F.L. Unspools; New York Times, 2/2/16

Richard Sandomir, New York Times; Out of a Rare Super Bowl I Recording, a Clash With the N.F.L. Unspools:

"Haupt owns the recording but not its content, which belongs to the N.F.L. If the league refuses to buy it, he cannot sell the tapes to a third party, like CBS or a collector who would like to own a piece of sports history that was believed to be lost. He would like to persuade the league to sell the tapes jointly and donate some of the proceeds to their favorite charities. His mother said that she would give some of her share of the sale to the Wounded Warrior Project.

“They’re not doing anybody any good sitting in a vault,” he said. “Let’s help some great charities.”

But that is unlikely to happen. A letter from the league to Harwood last year provided a sharp warning to Haupt. “Since you have already indicated that your client is exploring opportunities for exploitation of the N.F.L.’s Super Bowl I copyrighted footage with yet-unidentified third parties,” Dolores DiBella, a league counsel, wrote, “please be aware that any resulting copyright infringement will be considered intentional, subjecting your client and those parties to injunctive relief and special damages, among other remedies.”

The law favors the league, said Jodi Balsam, a professor at Brooklyn Law School.

“What the league technically has is a property right in the game information and they are the only ones who can profit from that,” said Balsam, a former N.F.L. lawyer."

Kaskade's Free Music: Beer, or Speech? A Look at Sampling, Creative Commons and Copyright (Op-Ed); Billboard, 7/1/14

Steve Martocci, Billboard; Kaskade's Free Music: Beer, or Speech? A Look at Sampling, Creative Commons and Copyright (Op-Ed) :

"While Kaskade's "Ain't Gotta Lie" stems are free, Kaskade still owns the stems under the Copyright Law and can choose to enforce his rights at any time, potentially rendering all of the stem users liable for infringement.

"Free as in free speech" implies liberty and freedom from restrictions. With free software, you're encouraged to contribute to the source code, to modify, improve and redistribute it. These actions are usually prohibited by copyright law, but the rights-holder is able to remove these restrictions by accompanying the software with a license (like GNU, MIT or Apache). Open source software is possible because of licenses like this.

Similar to software developers, music creators continually borrow, mix, and enhance each other's sounds. Evolution in music comes from continual experimentation and inspiration from the past and present.

Producer Mark Ronson recently said in a TED Talk, "The dam has burst. We live in the post-sampling era. We take the things that we love and we build on them."

Ronson is right. We live in a thriving remix culture where the creation of derivative work is inevitable. Consumers obtain and re-distribute copyrighted material illegitimately all the time. It's become ubiquitous. Activist Lawrence Lessig, pioneer of Creative Commons and author of "Remix," asserts "outdated copyright laws have turned our children into criminals."...

Kaskade closes his manifesto with an aspirational declaration: "Free the music, and your cash will follow." Artists that want to advance an open source future for music need to reconsider their definition of free. Releasing stems free of charge isn't enough. To protect creators, the stems need to be freed from restrictions by choosing a Creative Commons license.

So Kaskade...how can we use these stems? Are they free as in beer or free as in free speech?"

Let Them Sing... About Copyright?; TechDirt, 12/4/09

Mike Masnick, TechDirt; Let Them Sing... About Copyright?:

"Shocklee points us to an awesome little app that lets you type in whatever lyrics (or, well, words) you want, hit play, and whatever you type will be sung for you, using clips from various famous songs. It's a really fun little app (though, I was amused that they have no clip for the word "lyrics" despite the service being all about lyrics) and can get pretty addictive. In fact, if you want to hear this entire post sung outloud via this system, just click here (please note, this will take a really long time to load, but it's totally worth it). However, like with many other cool music projects, I'm left wondering whether or not some would consider this to be copyright infringement. All of the clips are tiny -- one word, or in many cases, less than a full word, but they do seem to come from various popular and well-known songs."

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091204/1146267209.shtml