HOW LAW CONSTRUCTS AND CONSTRAINS CULTURE
Held in association with the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival

View short movies from the conference

These short movies are licensed under Creative Commons Licenses

A view from artists

To Clear or not to Clear (MPEG version)
Filmmaker Chris Hegedus discusses how rights clearance practices have changed since the making of "Don't Look Back"

Disappearing History? (MPEG version)
Filmmaker Orlando Bagwell talks about making “Citizen King” and why “Eyes on the Prize” is no longer in circulation

Great Composers Steal (MPEG version)
Composer Anthony Kelley visits classical and jazz traditions and explains why you can find a doppelganger for almost any tune

Some legal perspectives*

Documentary Filmmaking (MPEG version)
Legal experts James Boyle and John Sloss discuss the legal and practical realities facing documentary filmmakers, including copyright law and errors and omissions insurance

Music Sampling (MPEG version)
Music lawyer Whitney Broussard describes how law can change the kind of music that gets made, and how clearance processes can make the whole artistic community poorer

*please note that these are only excerpts from a panel discussion at a conference and not legal advice.

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To learn more about intellectual property law and creativity, visit our resources page.

View longer edited webcasts

Culture on the Legal Cutting Room Floor
Documentary filmmakers and legal experts discuss the intellectual property hurdles faced by filmmakers in clearing rights and renewing limited licenses for images and music, the conflict between their need to access protected material and their desire to protect their own works and maintain the integrity of those works after production, and legal reforms that take into account artists' perspectives.

Music, Bound by Law?
Would the evolution of genres such as jazz, which relied on practices of borrowing and referencing, be possible under today's legal regime? Musicians and legal experts examine the treatment of creative practices across musical genres, how the line between permissible borrowing and theft in music has shifted in recent years, and musical forms that would be enabled by different ways of doing business within the music industry.