Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain has published James Boyle, Jennifer Jenkins, and Keith Aoki’s graphic novel guide to Fair Use for documentary filmmakers titled “Tales From the Public Domain: Bound by Law. I’ve of course forwarded the link to many of my former students. Poor kids, they can graduate, but they can never escape the long-reach of my reading assignments.
Not that you have to take my class to get reading assignments from me, it’s some sort of strange compulsion that must be embedded in my DNA.
So on that note – I encourage you to check out the book, I think it’s quite well done.
There are also free digital versions available, which is just fantastic for struggling artists (or, really, anyway). You can buy the book or you can always opt for a free downloadable version to save trees and then send them some cash, anyway, if you have a little extra floating around in your pocket. This is really important work they’re doing.
Semi-disclaimer: I have no affiliation with the Center for Public Domain but have enjoyed their excellent programs and generous hospitality and just generally think the staff are just swell. And if you go to one of their events, I strongly suggest timing your visit so that you can eat at Bullocks BBQ, which is simply divine.
I haven’t yet read that one but I am reminded of Captain Copyright. Have you seen him?
Huh. Hadn’t seen that one, actually. Looking at the IP notice page I see that Captain Copyright is a bit of a control freak:
“Permission is expressly granted to any person who wishes to place a link in his or her own website to http://www.accesscopyright.ca or any of its pages with the following exception: permission to link is explicitly withheld from any website the contents of which may, in the opinion of the Access Copyright, be damaging or cause harm to the reputation of Access Copyright. Specifically, permission to link is explicitly withheld from sites featuring pornographic, racist or homophobic content. If you link to or otherwise include http://www.captaincopyright.ca on your website, please let us know.”
Yes, Captain Copyright is a scary dude. I got the link from http://www.musematic.net. She also mentioned the (much better) graphic novel, above.