But to look at a situation and just swallow all of the “facts” is to be quite stupid. For instance… We forget a few very important distinctions when it comes to, for instance, the piracy of Adobe products.

I’ll openly say that I pirated Adobe CS3. The truth of the matter is that there was no way, at ALL, that I was going to buy the suite. I wasn’t using it for work… I was a high schooler trying to learn the program. However, as I continued to use the program, I learned more and more about how powerful, etcetera, the program was.

So, I ended up buying CS4. It is very, very likely that I never would have bough CS4 at all if I had not originally pirated CS3. So, what gain would Adobe have if, like me, a ton of know-nothing designers didn’t learn on pirated copies, if we weren’t going to buy the copies anyway?

This is a devil’s advocate point of view, I understand, but I think it is important to really look at an issue holistically rather than microscopically… Jesus definitely supports this concept. Can we all just remember the “rules” he broke? And the reasons he broke them? Come on… Show a freaking clip of Passion if it’s going to change someone’s life. At what point does this “rule-following” that really comes down to pure materialism, anyway, interfere with our ultimate life goal, which is to further the present and future Kingdom of God?

Let’s all copyright the Bible. Then, let’s see if open-sourcing the bible becomes an ethical issue. I highly doubt that we would stop reading verses from the pulpit without receiving proper “permissions.”

Again, be nice… I’m just offering devil’s advocate argument.

Secondly- if you look at things from the fact that we (and the other church) were transforming the clip (putting our own graphics and mixes with it, et cetera), in this instance, if we didn’t go through the proper channels (media kit) copyright violation would have occurred.

Would our showing of the clip have caused “excessive economic harm to the copyright owner”? Probably not. But, that doesn’t negate us from doing the right thing and paying the $25 for the promo/media kit.

The thing that is most alarming to me is that churches take a stance that they don’t need to adhere to copyright. This is foolish. This is completely contrary to Christ’s own commandment to “render unto Caesar”.

So- just showing the clip. Fine. But if you want to edit that clip, add your stuff to it, and all that- you need permission.

http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/resources/publications/fair_use_in_online_video/

Particularly in Nick’s example, we’d be looking at guideline two:

TWO: USING COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL FOR ILLUSTRATION OR EXAMPLE
DESCRIPTION: Sometimes video makers quote copyrighted material (for instance, music, video, photographs, animation, text) not in order to comment upon it, but because it aptly illustrates an argument or a point. For example, clips from Hollywood films might be used to demonstrate changing American attitudes toward race; a succession of photos of the same celebrity may represent the stages in the star’s career; a news clip of a politician speaking may reinforce an assertion.

LIMITATIONS: To the extent possible and appropriate, illustrative quotations should be drawn from a range of different sources; and each quotation (however many may be employed to create an overall pattern of illustrations) should be no longer than is necessary to achieve the intended effect. Properly attributing material, whether in the body of the text, in credits, or in associated material will often reduce the likelihood of complaints or legal action and may bolster a maker’s fair use claim.

Prior to that there are two questions that need to be asked in order to determine whether or not the use of the copyrighted material is fair:

1. Did the unlicensed use “transform” the material taken from the copyrighted work by using it for a different purpose than that of the original, or did it just repeat the work for the same intent and value as the original?

Both questions touch on, among other things, the question of whether the use will cause excessive economic harm to the copyright owner.

I believe it would be a very tough case to make that somebody was engaging in copyright violation for using a 15-30 second clip of a feature film from a DVD for illustrative purposes in a church service.

just bringing it up. I wasn’t saying it “was” or wasn’t, but merely trying to start a convo.