[A2k] SA Filmmaker Plan of Action

[Sean Flynn]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--
[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
Following the meeting on Copyright User Rights and South African
Documentary Film, March 22-24, 2009, in Cape Town, South Africa's
Documentary Filmmakers' Alliance and Black Filmmakers Network and
American University Washington College of Law's Program on Information
Justice and Intellectual Property (partner organizations) adopted the
following plan of action.



The partner organizations will:



*	Work together to develop a consensus "best practices" document
explicating current rights to quote or otherwise use copyrighted content
in documentary films without permission from or payment to the content
owner;
*	Include within the best practices statement standards for
attribution of indigenous sources of authorship;
*	Work with the University of Cape Town Intellectual Property Unit
to develop a legal advice network for documentary filmmakers on user
rights in copyright law;
*	Develop a list of pressing copyright policy proposals for
pending revision of the South African Copyright law, such as expanding
the incidental use exception for "artistic works" to include capture of
background audio and visual sources.



The organizations also adopted a set of longer term objectives that will
be included in their planning processes, including:



*	Develop other policy reform goals, such as positions on
copyright term extensions;
*	Research law reform strategies, including research into
constitutional free expression grounds for user rights exceptions to the
copyright law;
*	Research how documentary filmmakers can contribute to projects
in South Africa seeking to audit all archival and documentary footage
(public and privately held) and create "open" archive projects through
which material would be more widely available to filmmakers and other
researchers;
*	Research the development of model transfer agreements for
footage from filmmaker private archives to open archive projects;
*	Research the utility of international best practices statements
that attempt to harmonize user rights interpretation across borders.



The meeting on Copyright User Rights and Documentary Film Copyright was
convened by the partner organizations with support from the Ford
Foundation. The meeting was attended by over 40 South African
documentary filmmakers as well as representatives from PIJIP, Creative
Commons, University of Cape Town Intellectual Property Unit, University
of Cape Town Visual History Archive, i-Heritage and the South Africa
History Archives.

The meeting followed a period of research on the actual and perceived
barriers that South African Copyright law is posing to the development
of the local documentary film industry. The research included
comparative legal analysis of "fair dealing" and other limitations and
exceptions in copyright laws of Commonwealth countries and a survey of
the perceptions and practices of South African documentary filmmakers.
The final findings and recommendations from the first year of the
project, including an analysis of the filmmaker survey results, will be
released by July 1, 2009.



More information on the project can be found at
www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/internationalfilm