24-Bit Dailies in a 16-Bit World

A word of caution. There is a new form of extortion going around the internet: bots that troll, searching for alleged copyright infringements.

Recently I was the victim of one such trolling endeavor: a firm representing Associated Press found an old blog entry on my archived website that had a thumbnail photo of Steve Jobs. The trolling company claimed that the picture was protected by copyright (even though it was widely circulated on the web following Steve’s death and had no copyright markings). Maybe it was theirs; maybe not. The web was awash with tons of similarly angled pix from some Apple event.

Since the blog article was old and unimportant, we immediately removed the picture; but did not respond back to them until after the third notice since we doubted the validity of their threats to sue us.

But the firm still demanded a payment of a few hundred dollars “for the unlicensed use of the picture” up to the time it was removed.

We did a thorough background check on this company, and unfortunately it did turn out that they were for real. They have an arrangement with a large law firm to file lawsuits against anyone they accuse. Apparently, they have a history of going after anyone, regardless of whether the alleged pix were used by an individual/teacher/student under Fair Use Guidelines, or by a commercial venture. It is definitely an unethical means of farming a lot of income, and they have got it down to a science.   

I discussed the situation with an attorney friend. Yes, there is a very high probability that the thumbnail was not even theirs. Even if it was, our limited use of it easily ticked the boxes of Fair Use for educational purposes. Would we win if this went to court? Most likely.

But at what personal cost? Legal fees, time spent, lots of stress… since it was unlikely that the university would assume the expense on behalf of a retired adjunct – his advice was to just pay them the “ransom” and be done with it. Swallow the ego, forego principle, and make the problem go away.

So be very careful, and advise your students to be extremely careful. Especially about using pictures from the news, or from large studios (Disney is probably the most notorious). Copyright trolling is a new enterprise, but it is growing.

The biggest mistake that aspiring filmmakers make is that they limit their education to the techniques and aesthetics of filmmaking. They fail to widen their academic perspectives to see how other life skills can and will address the real world challenges that they will face as an active participant in this very demanding creative industry.

This article was written for Student Filmmaker Magazine.

As an educator and former Hollywood sound mixer, I really wish that universities would devote less time teaching calculus and more time explaining how to balance a checkbook! Students dedicate themselves to learning the aesthetics and technology of filmmaking, including production budgeting – yet they fail miserably when it comes to basic home economics.

If you can’t film a script in the pandemic world, then film a pandemic world in a script!