“What is Fair Use?” Video: A Creative and Collaborative Process

A year or so ago, I asked this question at a meeting:  What could the copyright help centers at University Libraries and the Health Sciences Library provide online that would be helpful to those engaged in learning technology initiatives at Ohio State?  One of the answers I received was that they would like to have access to short videos about copyright, especially a video about fair use.  Learning technology specialists anticipated using it with faculty, staff, and students as needs and questions arose, and they anticipated using themselves in order to refresh their understanding of fair use concepts.

Also last year, University Libraries began their Instructor Development Program (IDP), a learning community to enable participants to develop skills for teaching with technology.  When I applied and was accepted to the program, I knew that my project would be to develop at least one copyright video.  I used the IDP’s resources to learn more about the best way to structure and write the script and define the mood and tone I wanted to convey.  For technical help, Karen Diaz and Tingting Lu, the IDP coordinators, suggested that I talk to Dave Hooker at the Digital Union.

My multimedia experience and skills are limited, and I knew that it was going to be difficult for me to produce a polished product alone.  To my surprise and delight, the Digital Union staff offered to collaborate with me.  Chad Weiss, a student worker at the Digital Union and a flash animator, worked on the video throughout the summer of 2011, using my script and image ideas.  The result is stylish and fun to watch and shows elements of both of our ideas for approaching the subject.  Eric Schnell’s narration and Dave Hooker’s guidance and finishing touches provide additional dimensions.  The result is a video that is appropriate for a wide variety of audiences at the university.

The process we used to make the fair use video illustrates some of the central themes of copyright and fair use.  In many ways copyright is the law of creativity, since a work is copyrighted when creative expression is fixed in tangible form.  One of the themes of the fair use exception to the copyright law is collaboration, because fair use (within the confines of the statute) allows re-use of copyrighted material for socially useful, educational, and creative purposes.  I am grateful to everyone involved in making the “What is Fair Use” video  for a chance to teach faculty, staff, and students about the important concepts of fair use through this medium.