Comic Book on Fair Use for Filmmakers

Direct Link to "Tales from the Public Domain: Bound By Law"

Museum, Education, and Library IT networks have special interest or affinity groups on the topic of copyright and fair use.  The MCN (Museum Computer Network) Intellectual Property Special Internet Group is chaired by Amalyah Keshet.

She frequently posts to the MCN list on the topic and also blogs about it at the Museumatic blog and that's how I discovered this comic book via a post she did on children's educational materials about copyright.  (Note: She isn't ranting about the above book and materials)

There is a good list of resource materials at the site, including a link to the Documentary Filmmakers Statement on Best Practices in Fair Use from the Center for Social Media that Michael Hoffman pointed to in his post on fair use.  The site also has a blog on the topic of fair use.

Comments

[Stephen Downes]

Ack, the widget boxes and extra stuff slow the whole site down - especially when they have to load before the content I'm trying to read!

Just so you know...

[Beth]

Stephen:

I'm just noticing that myself. I think it's also a combination of some of the videos and other stuff inserted in my posts as well.

I watched the lower left corner status prompt of my browser and it seems like flickr and mybloglines are the worst offenders.

Hmm .. I've got to do something about my widget baggage. Maybe a survivor show where I publically ditch a widget a week until my blog loads quickly. Perhaps doing a rating of:

-amount of traffic generated
-value added to my blog content or my readers
-ability to amplify comments
-how much it contributes to slow loading.

Hmm .. gotta go think about that. I'm gonna definitely ditch some of the experiments. Maybe my sandbox blog will become the dumping ground.

[Stephen Downes]

I was looking for the link to the comic on fair use and I didn't see it in the RSS post.

I didn't see it on the website either, so it was kind of a futile visit all around.

Usually when I pop out of RSS it's to see content and links that don't make it through the aggregator.

I also pop into the site when I'm linking to it in my newsletter, because I want to make sure what I'm linking to is what I think is there.

It's worth noting that when I link to something in my newsletter (and I would imagine this is true of blogs in general) people will go to your website - they follow the link out of RSS (or email) from my page to yours, and when they view yours, it can only be the website version.

But this, too, is why I check. I would be hesitant to send people to the site right now, especially given that I have an international readership. There's too much clutter, and when people can't read the article, they get mad at me, not you (because I'm the one who sent them to that morass).

[Beth]

Stephen:

Thanks for your feedback and sharing a little about your RSS reading habits.

The link to the comic book is in Amalyah's post which is an informative look at educational materials about copyright for children.
And, oops, I didn't include a direct link the post, although I did in the flickr photo link. I'll fix that now.

And, yes, you are absolutely right ... my blog is messy right now. I apologize. I've just been through an extensive experiment with widgets.

What I takeaway from your constructive advice is:

-a seperate place for experiments, a sandbox might be in order

-I need to clean up my blog -- clear out the clutter from the experiment, clear out clutter in general. That will probably have to wait a few weeks until things slow down. Any advice on that?

[Stephen Downes]

Oh, I think a blog is a perfect place to experiment - don't stop on account of me.

What I would get rid of is:

- anything in Flash, especially if it comes from another site

- other things that come from other sites.

If you do keep stuff hat comes from other sites, it is important that they load last - they should be at the bottom of your page (the bottom of the HTML; it doesn't matter where it actually appears).

[Nancy White]

Psst. I'm finding the flash flickr badge can slow things down. I used them on an online interaction event site and eventually went to the static HTML badges. That sped things back up.