The Copyright Clearance Culture

The US copyright office has posted the Grokster briefs in their entirety. They did not ask the permission of the EFF (who is arguing the case for Grokster) or any of the other petitioners for permission to do so– there’s an overwhelming public interest. File this for later as an example of government fair use.

More on fair use: We’ve gotten a huge bunch of signatures on the Movement Veterans statement – partly because these people believe it is time to come up with a way to deal with historical documentaries that can not be easily relicensed (as the following Ford Foundation person suggests), so go ahead and sign on too. Orlando Bagwell, a filmmaker and a Ford Foundation Grants Director involved with the relicensing of “Eyes on the Prize” spells out why it has been hard to relicense “Eyes” – he tells us what they might do if the major labels don’t help to rerelease the film, and lists the many other documentaries sitting on dusty shelves, out of circulation yet not in the public domain. He says clearly that the major labels are a large force stopping “Eyes” from coming back. Click on Orlando to watch: