Alternate Focus needs a law student

Being a low-budget 501(C)3 and lacking a team of lawyers, Alternate Focus, www.alternatefocus.org, the San Diego-based non-profit documentary cable access/satellite/web show I work with, we have often bumbled around the digital rights management world. But despite a need to become more diligent in some areas, so far it seems we have managed to fly under the radar and use a broad interpretation of fair use. Generally, the people/organizations we acquire footage. music, images, etc from are quite supportive of our mission and happy to contribute assets without extensive contracts and such. Also because our goal is to broadcast our programs as an educational tool and voice for underrepresented groups and viewpoints, we don’t have to concern ourselves with who else might be using our work. However, we do use on blip.tv te creative commons

Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd)

Choose by-nc-nd license

This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, allowing redistribution. This license is often called the “free advertising” license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

However, since we do plan to expand to broader distribution outlets and step up the overall legitimacy and quality of the programs we will need to tighten up. About a quarter of our shows are sourced from other producers/organizations so I think we’ll need to update our standard contract to cover distribution rights for our normal cable access outlets, satellite, and perhaps most importantly, to allow us to place videos on multiple web pages, some under our control and others not. Additionally, we’d like to add to our web archives many shows that we’re produced and licensed only for cable access distribution. This may take some serious emailing and faxing.

We will also need to do some serious study about using news footage clips from mainstream media outlets and how fair use dances around this issue. From what I’ve seen on their corporate webpages the tolerable range of fair use seems quite small though I assume that’s because they want to get paid. Again, because we’re frequently exploring topics involving powerful forces (Blackwater, Israeli conservatives, etc) we need to ensure we don’t leave ourselves vulnerable to swarm of ravenous lawyers looking to make an example of a small indy media group.

A series of TUBES!

Drawing inspiration from Alaska Senator Ted “the internet is a series of TUBES” Stevens’ recent indictment on various corruption charges, I thought I’d check his official government page http://stevens.senate.gov/public/  and see if he has a video message for his constituents. 

Below is part of his rambling speech in the Senate on net neutrality 

<object width=”425″ height=”344″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/f99PcP0aFNE&hl=en&fs=1″></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/f99PcP0aFNE&hl=en&fs=1” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object>

 

<object width=”425″ height=”344″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/_cZC67wXUTs&hl=en&fs=1″></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/_cZC67wXUTs&hl=en&fs=1” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object>

While he had only a written statement regarding his legal troubles, he did, to my suprise, actually have a Real video clip as a welcome message.  However, perhaps in a testament to Flash’s prevalence, the laptop I’m currently using didn’t have real installed and I was too lazy to install it so I guess I’ll never hear Ted’s words of wisdom through those series of tubes. 

Onto the Windows Media Player front, I wandered over to NBC’s Olympic page.  They wanted my zip code and cable company  “By selecting your cable or satellite provider, you are confirming that you are a paid subscriber of the above service.”  So if I don’t subscribe to a cable company does that mean I can’t access the videos?  Hmmm….I’m not sure if excluding non TV watchers is the best approach to bridging the computer/tv world and getting people to download silverlight and other MS products.  Again I suspect some legal fine print with the cable companies, and I suppose it’d be simple enough to just commit 9th degree fraud and pick any cable company but I can’t remember ever encountering this issue before. 

Moving on, I’m checking out the player before downloading Silverlight.  A link for the only event the site asserts is streaming live, the womens podium training channel, shows me an ad in the 4 section player, but then shows me nothing and check out the online guide for the next live event.  I’m very disappointed…I’ve always wanted to watch live podium training, but now I can’t    I do like the layout of the player and it’s mixture of minimal text and various video options.  Attempting another video (I’ve yet to see any content) I get the official “we’re having technical difficulties” logo graphic/pleasant female voice.  Perhaps it’s a clever strategy to make your previous software so incompatible with new offerings that the user must acquire your latest gadgett…I think I’ve heard of this before.  Alright MS, ya got me, I’ll download Silverlight.  Oh but I have to restart to complete the install of course…That’s the last straw, I’m done.