A good resource: A Filmmaker’s Guide to Music Licensing.

Lessons from ‘Going Clear’: Seven Tips for Documentarians to Avoid Lawsuits.

Beware the Meerkat (and its competitors): Legal Issues with Live Streaming Apps.

For Documentarians: 4 Things to Understand About Fair Use.

If I’m not mistaken, these tips are from the same Michael Donaldson who co-wrote Clearance & Copyright with Lisa Callif.  Fair Use is poorly understood by most, but if anyone should understand it as a matter of course, it’s the documentary filmmaker.

I’ve paged through Donaldson & Callif’s book before and it looks like a great pick.  No legalese.  And (as you might have predicted) Amazon will pay me a commission at no extra cost to you if you buy it through this blog post.

Stealing Photos Hurts Photographers: Is Etsy the New Silk Road for Copyright Infringement?

Etsy has created a system where copyright infringement is almost encouraged. Kharma Lu has not had her account shut down and has not suffered any ill effects for printing and selling my photo without permission. Who knows how many other sellers are doing the same thing?

I could be wrong, but I don’t believe the usual DMCA takedown notices work in this case because Etsy is not posting the infringing image directly on their website, but merely posting photos of goods that display the infringing image.  There is a difference; and I think Etsy may be hiding behind it in order to allow their merchant users to remain undisturbed.  But isn’t Etsy benefiting monetarily from this copyright infringement with the commissions they earn on the sales of such goods?  Aren’t they accomplices to piracy when they let these merchants get away with selling infringing products?