"Eyes on the Prize" Press Coverage
Posted by Doug Thu, 03 Feb 2005 02:07:00 GMT
I was contacted today by a local reporter who had found out I was participating in EyesOnTheScreen by organizing a screening of “Eyes on the Prize”. He said he’s running a piece in the Sunday paper about it. I’m excited about the publicity. I’d love to have a good crowd next Tuesday. There was some concern by my church leaders about hosting the screening. They were concerned about three issues: the content of the video, the legality of showing the video, and security for the building. The last issue is one I had largely overlooked, but is a good thing to think about. Our building is largely in-securable. What I mean is the outside doors lock, but almost none of the offices, class rooms, hallways, or supply rooms lock. One of there requests was to make sure there were four or five people at the event who could help direct traffic towards the auditorium and keep the other areas “off limits.” As far as content goes, several of the church leaders had seen the video series already and could attest to both the quality of the production and that the content was appropriate to show in a church building. The legality is another issue all together. It all boils down to Fair Use. If you’ve been following the EyesOnTheScreen event, you probably know that one of the larger sites hosting a screening has said they aren’t going to be able host because of legal reasons. I actually talked to Tiffiniy Cheng of Downhill Battle on the phone about the issue. She said she had talked with the EFF about it. It turns out some lawyer representing some unknown client told the School Board (where the screening was to be hosted) that they didn’t have a license to show the video. The school board lawyer wasn’t well versed in copyright law and said he’d have to believe this unknown law firm until he was able to research it further. My understanding is the EFF helped provide a pro bono lawyer (although the lawyer may not be directly employed by the EFF) who specializes in copyright law to represent the school board. Tiffiniy implied that the screening would continue as scheduled based on the school board’s revised understanding. So where does that leave me? No one’s contacted me in a legal sense about the screening I’m hosting. I proactively contacted a friend of mine who’s a lawyer to ask about it. She put me in contact with an associate who specializes in copyright and intellectual property. We discussed the issue over the phone. She said she wasn’t able to give me legal advice based on the limited information she had, but that she believed my showing the video would be fair use. I gave all this information to the elders of our church tonight. They agreed to let me host the screening as long as I was able to get some people to help me manage the actual event and as long as I would provide them with a letter indemnifying them. I’m willing to do both of those things. I’m pretty excited. It makes me feel like I’m part of something big.
