It's worth noting, if you didn't parse everything released with the new DMCA exemptions announced yesterday, that the fan vids in the OTW's Test Suite of Fair Use Vids (Women's Work by Sisabet and Luminosity, This Is How It Works by Lim, Handlebars by Seah and Margie, and Closer by Killa and T. Jonesy) as well as additional vids that we presented at the DMCA hearings last year - Lierdumoa's How Much Is That Geisha In The Window, Lim's Us, and Luminosity's Vogue - are discussed in the Register of Copyright's Recommendation to The Librarian of Congress. (You can download the entire .pdf, which is searchable.)

For instance, Lierdumoa's vid helped to convince the Register that vidders need access to high quality source:

"Noncommercial, transformative users have also sufficiently demonstrated that certain uses require high quality in order for the purpose of the use to be sufficiently expressed and communicated. For instance, where focus on background material in a motion picture is essential to the transformative purpose, as exemplified in the situation of bringing the background to the foreground, the use of decrypted DVDs is necessary to make the point. One particular example of “bringing the background to the foreground” was demonstrated in the vid, How Much Is That Geisha In The Window, by Lierdumoa. This vid criticizes and comments upon Joss Whedon’s science fiction television series Firefly. The series incorporates Asian culture and art, but the vid demonstrates that almost no Asian characters are featured and that they appear only in the background."

The Register also discussed the timing, characterization, editing, and message of the other vids, concluding that, "frequently when one is engaging in commentary about audiovisual works, it is necessary to use high quality reproductions in order to make one’s point."

The OTW is grateful to these vidders for allowing their work to appear in our Test Suite and for sending their work with us to Washington. Concrete examples made using high quality source are crucial to our arguments, and it is also vital for us to know about your stories, experiences, expectations, and practices. As we noted in our announcement of the exemption, we'll have to do this again in two years, and the Copyright Office will once again require evidence of the need for an exemption. You can help strengthen our case by leaving a comment or emailing the OTW's Vidding Committee at any time.

In related news, we are continuing to keep track of press about the DMCA exemptions, so keep an eye on our links post. We are also proud to launch a Press Room to serve as a focal point for media contact and to collect media mentions of our work, as well as our own OTW press releases.

The OTW's Legal and Vidding Committees have just been informed that the Library Of Congress is about to release a (long-awaited!) ruling granting a DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) exemption to makers of noncommercial remix, which includes vidding, anime music videos, political remix videos and the like. Previously film studies professors had the only exemption: now documentary filmmakers, makers of noncommercial video, and media studies teachers are also permitted to circumvent DMCA technologies if they need to in order to teach or to make artistic statements. (The DMCA exemption applies to you if you are in the U.S. or if someone tries to apply U.S. law to your work.)

This ruling does not mean that all vids and other remixed works are entirely out of the fog of legal uncertainty; rather, it means that people making noncommercial remix video do not have to worry about violating the DCMA's anticircumvention provisions (which otherwise might prohibit ripping a protected DVD), which are separate from ordinary U.S. copyright law and which don't otherwise allow for fair use. There is a requirement that circumvention must be necessary, because the Copyright Office believes that screen capture software might in some circumstances produce results of sufficient quality. As Tisha Turk testified, however, this is unlikely to be true for vidders.

The OTW worked with the EFF on the proposed exemption, submitted its own reply comment in support (special thanks to Casey Fiesler for her hard work), and went down to DC to support this comment with live testimony from Francesca Coppa, Tisha Turk, and Rebecca Tushnet. Today's ruling is the result of the hard work of a coalition of documentary filmmakers, media studies professors, and fair use advocates.

The ruling is expected to be posted on the Library of Congress site later today! We'll post more news and links as they become available!

One final note: because of the restrictiveness of the law, we have to do this all over again in two years. We need your stories to help, because the Copyright Office needs to see evidence of the need for an exemption: tell us why you need high-quality source to make your vids, why they are transformative, and/or why you don't use screen capture. You can comment, or email the OTW's Vidding Committee any time.

You can read OTW's press release on the decision here.

Ende Mai forderten mehrere britische Verbraucherschutz- und Bürgerrechtsgruppen [englisch] gemeinsam die Regulierungsbehörden dazu auf, bei neuen Regelungen zu Online-Urheberrechtsverletzungen auf einen angemessenen Schutz von VerbraucherInnen zu achten [englisch, PDF].

Frühere Nachforschungen [englisch] haben gezeigt, dass viele Internetanbieter viel zu leicht einknicken, wenn Dritte sie über potentielle Urheberrechtsverletzungen informieren. Die AdministratorInnen entfernen das beanstandete Material, ohne vorher die NutzerInnen zu fragen oder auch nur die Stichhaltigkeit der Behauptungen zu prüfen.

Einige europäische Staaten planen Schritte, die das übereilte Handeln der Dienstanbieter einschränken könnten. Das isländische Parlament wird in Kürze über die Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (Initiative für Moderne Medien in Island) [englisch]) diskutieren. Die Initiative, die aus Sorge um die Pressefreiheit gegründet wurde, könnte auch Fans helfen: Falls sie verabschiedet wird, werden Rechteinhaber vermutlich eine richterliche Anordnung einholen müssen, bevor sie von Internetanbietern das Löschen von Material verlangen können [englisch].

Dies steht in klarem Gegensatz zu den rechtsstaatlich fragwürdigen "Drei Verstöße"-Regelungen, die in vielen europäischen Staaten bereits eingeführt wurden oder diskutiert werden. Diese erlauben es Internet-Service-Providern (ISPs), die Internetverbindungen von BreitbandnutzerInnen stillzulegen, die bei drei Gelegenheiten des illegalen Dateientauschs beschuldigt wurden; und das nur auf das Wort einer Drittfirma hin, die mit der Beobachtung des Netzwerkverkehrs beauftragt wurde. Die Regulierungsbehörden scheinen entschlossen, diese Maßnahmen durchzusetzen, obwohl eine Anfang des Jahres in Frankreich veröffentlichte Studie zeigt, dass Urheberrechtsverletzungen sogar noch zugenommen haben [englisch] seit Frankreich 2008 seine "Drei Verstöße"-Regelung HADOPI eingeführt hat. Im Mai 2010 startete der irische ISP Eircom sein Pilotprogramm einer "Drei Verstöße"-Regelung [englisch], und Ofcom in Großbritannien hat kürzlich einen Entwurf für ähnliche Pläne vorgelegt [englisch].

Verbraucherschutzgruppen in Europa müssen daher mit starkem Gegenwind rechnen, wenn sie Gesetzgeber und Regulierungsbehörden davon überzeugen wollen, Regelungen umzusetzen, die von der Unschuld der Verbraucher ausgehen und Fair Use sowie transformative Nutzungen von urheberrechtlich und markenrechtlich geschützten Werken zulassen. Der Rechtsausschuss des Europäischen Parlaments (JURI) wird im Juni über einen Bericht zur "Verbesserung der Durchsetzung von Rechten des geistigen Eigentums" abstimmen, den die Interessengruppe La Quadrature du Net "einen Tiefpunkt des Urheberrechts- und Patentdogmatismus" [englisch] nennt.

Da das Eigene Archiv (Archive of Our Own) und die OTW es sich zur Aufgabe gemacht haben, Fanwerke gegen rechtliche Anfechtung zu verteidigen [englisch], sind auch wir der Ansicht, dass europäische ISPs nicht verpflichtet sein sollten, ohne Weiteres juristischen Drohungen von Rechteinhabern nachzugeben, ohne dass diese Anschuldigungen jemals von unabhängiger Seite auf ihre Stichhaltigkeit überprüft wurden. Wenn Verbraucherrechte missachtet werden, können "Drei Verstöße"-Regelungen den Zugang zu Fanwerken verhindern.

In recent weeks, partly prompted by Diana Gabaldon’s publication of her fan fiction policy, some other professional authors have been moved to declare their positions (pro, con, or in between) on fanworks. The OTW has also been contacted by some professional authors who like fan fiction, but worry if it poses a danger to them in some way.

For the record, the OTW believes that noncommercial fan works are an important form of cultural conversation and don't require the approval of the original work's author or owner. While fair use is a key component of our intellectual property system, it's also important to talk about other aspects of the law that may assuage some fears.

Q: I'm a professional creator. Do I need to avoid reading or acknowledging fanworks based on my own works?"

Answer Under The Cut!

A: This is essentially a personal decision. If it will upset you to read, view, or watch fanworks based on your works, then don't.

Authors are sometimes advised to avoid reading or acknowledging fanfiction transforming their own work, as it is in theory possible that an author could read a story, go on to write something similar, and face a claim by the fan that she copied the fan's work. There are many reasons to discount this risk, the least of which is that case law is all in the first author's favor: no court is going to be receptive to a claim that a later work by the first author in the same universe infringes the fanwork. Among other things, when people begin with similar premises, it isn't at all surprising that they will end up with similar ideas--but copyright law protects the specific expression of an idea, not ideas. Even if a fan work is similar to a later work in the same universe, similarity of ideas (say, how wand magic works in Harry Potter) isn't sufficient for a copyright claim.

However, not being able to win doesn't erase the possibility that someone could threaten to sue. The real issue is that it doesn't take a fanwork to generate a threat! If an author reads her fan mail or online reviews, she might encounter a fan's ideas about what should happen with the characters; if she reads other books, she might encounter a storyline or character similar to a storyline or character she might later use. In fact, the typical author-versus-author infringement case involves claims that one work copied another, apparently unrelated work.

The OTW's mission includes explaining the difference between ideas and expression. A lot of people may have the same idea about what should happen on the next season of House; but if they each write different stories expressing the idea differently, then those stories don't infringe each other.

In short: a professional creator is no more at risk (and arguably, a lot less at risk) of being sued by a fanfiction writer than of being sued by any other author who’s ever written anything. J.K. Rowling, for example, has been sued by English children’s writer Adrian Jacobs (author of The Adventures of Willy the Wizard); American author Nancy Stouffer (who claimed that Harry Potter was a ripoff of her character “Larry Potter”), and the band the Wyrd Sisters--none of whom are fans.