At 11:00 PM 4/9/00 +0200, you wrote:
>Sorry if this is a bit off topic, but I figured if
anyone could provide
>an answer y'all could.
>
>I'd like to obtain authorization to use a number of
classic film noir
>films in my classroom: The Maltese Falcon, The Third
Man, The Lady from
>Shanghai, The Big Sleep and Key Largo. I need to know
the agency that I
>can request authorization from, both to use short
excerpts from these
>films and on occasion to show one or more of them in
their entirety.
>
>In the past, short citations from films (up to 3
minutes in length) were
>considered to fall under the fair use provisions, and
thus were exempt
>from the need to obtain prior authorization. A new
interpretation
>commissioned by the education ministry asserts that
to show a small
>portion of a film infringes on the artistic integrity
of the work, and
>hence is not allowed. So if I'm to avoid becoming a
hardened criminal, I
>need to request authorization.
>
In the U.S. such small takings
would likely still fall under "fair use".
_Falcon_, _Big Sleep_ and _Key
Largo_ I suspect are still owned by the studio, Warner Bros.,
that produced them. Doubtless they have their own licensing
division. Can't recall who produced the two Welles films on
your list, and they may have sold their catalogs anyway. Both
are available on videotape and their should be the copyright
info on the box. In the U.S., such copyright permissions for
film are generally dealt with directly by the holder rather
than through an agency such as ASCAP, though there will be a
licensing/ public performance mechanism for showing the film
as a whole.
I realize that's probably not as
helpful as you would like. For a fuller and perhaps more
specific answer, you might try the cni-copyright mailing list
which can also be accessed through the web.
James
-- # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 09 Apr 2000 EDT