the latest on expelled - stealing music, too

[acroyear]

The latest on Expelled?

Not only did they steal interview time from scientists by lying about the movie's content.

Not only did they steal computer animation by copying from material in science animations from other companies.

They stole their music as well.  It seems neither the Killers nor Yoko Ono (who owns controlling interest in John Lennon's songs) gave permission or sold any rights to use their material in the film (under either name, Expelled or Crossroads).

The film includes a short cut of "Imagine".  I'm not sure if they're using it some a positive sense ("yay, imagine the peace we'd have if Darwin never existed") or a negative sense because when the song first came out, evangelicals attacked it bitterly for the verse with "Imagine there's no heaven" as blasphemy and put it on the same hit list as every Kiss song and REO song and Styx song out there.  If the former, then the irony of using it in a film that otherwise spreads a message for fundies has just broken another meter.

The filmmakers claim they're within "fair use" because they only are using a short excerpt.

Hate to break it to you, guys, but "fair use" says a short excerpt can be used only when making an objective discussion and criticism of the work itself, not "I can use it for anything I want as long as its less than 20 seconds".

If you were in the right, we never would have had to deal with losing so much original material in the WKRP DVD release.

Update: Dawkins says its in the negative sense:

John Lennon's "Imagine" is played (original version) over B&W scenes of what looked like communist China, with a parade of soldiers. I remember a shot of Stalin saluting somewhere in here as well. The part of the song played was of course "...and no religion too...", implying that no religion equals communist China.

so the irony meter has recovered for another hour...

Comments

[smartypantsnyc.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard that about how clay provides a framework for DNA to be constructed, but I had heard some other spooky things, like how clay cells were found to divide (I can't find any sources on that one, so I may be getting it wrong).

In any case, the real irony is that if they'd take the blinders off for just one second, they might realize that that actually supports the idea in Genesis that God created Man from clay...

<3
R

Good to know

[thatwasjen]

Hate to break it to you, guys, but "fair use" says a short excerpt can be used only when making an objective discussion and criticism of the work itself, not "I can use it for anything I want as long as its less than 20 seconds".

Reference, please? I am not being snarky -- I'm trying to build up my arsenal of copyright-law facts and ammo.

Also, speaking of theft? I'm so tempted to pirate this movie, because I'm moderately interested in seeing it for myself but I sure don't want to pay for it...

Re: Good to know

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

WWW FAQs: Can I play the first 30 or 60 seconds of a song on my site without paying a license fee?:

the "fair use" exception to copyright law does allow the reproduction of very short excerpts from a musical work. However, this is allowed only under very narrow circumstances such as:

* In the context of a review of the song (music criticism).
* News reporting about the song.
* Academic scholarship about the song.
* Parody (making fun of the song, another form of music criticism).

What all of these exceptions have in common is that they do not allow you to use the song to promote your own unrelated website and advance your own unrelated goals. They allow you to talk about the song, and educate people about it in an academic way. But they do not allow you to take advantage of the song for your own purposes, unless you review music or do music scholarship for a living.

To be clear, you cannot take a 30-second excerpt from a popular song and play it in the background to jazz up your personal or corporate website and call that "fair use." You can't use a five-second excerpt, either! There is no blanket exemption for samples of any length.

From the government's site:

The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: "quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported."

Keep in mind these are all guidelines and not rules. Fair use is not an automatic right - it is not up to the government to assert it directly nor the copyright holder to be automatically beholden to grant it - you have to defend that your use is fair use.

Re: Good to know

[thatwasjen]

Cool.

Re: Good to know

[eiredrake.livejournal.com]

Yeah but you see, these guys are all Republican neo-cons. So the law doesn't apply to them.