Chapter | Nine

 

 

Law and the Movies

 

 

 

OVERVIEW

There’s nothing lawyers like more than skewering the little guy – but they won’t stand a chance with you.

 

10 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT COPYRIGHT

When you use samples of video in your movie, or use a story you saw in the newspaper, or quote a lengthy piece from a book, you might run up against the law, by breaking copyright. Copyright is a way of protecting you, not just the stuff you want to sample or use.

  • Copyright is about limited ownership. That means the law tries to be sensible about what you can use – it doesn’t want to get in the way of new culture, so you can use stuff in certain ways and certain terms.
  • Acceptable/fair usage: you don’t need to tell the copyright holder if what ...

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