Eyes on the Costs: Documentary Film Making and the escalating costs of copyright clearances

Eyes on the Costs: Documentary Film Making and the escalating costs of copyright clearances:

Eyes on the Costs: Documentary Film Making and the escalating costs of copyright clearances

Peter Jaszi and Pat Aufderheide have published the final report from their year-long study, Untold Stories: Creative Consequences of the Rights Clearance Culture for Documentary Filmmakers.

Jaszi and Aufderheide have found in their study that:

* Rights clearance costs are high, and have escalated dramatically in the last two decades

* Gatekeepers, such as distributors and insurers, enforce rigid and high-bar rights clearance expectations

* The rights clearance process is arduous and frustrating, especially around movies and music

* Rights clearance problems force filmmakers to make changes that adversely affect—and limit the public’s access to--their work, and the result is significant change in documentary practice

* Filmmakers, while sometimes seeing themselves as hostages of the “clearance culture,” also are creators of it

* Filmmakers nonetheless exercise fair use, and imagine a more rational rights environment

--Via Weatherall's Law: An Intellectual Property Blog from Oz.