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Untold Stories: The Creative Consequences of Copyright Clearance for Documentary Filmmakers continues to draw attention, at academic conferences and at film festivals. The report, and the short film by Brigid Maher, Stories Untold, which illustrates the report, have become tools both for education and action

At the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference on April 1, the Center's Untold Stories report was featured on a panel called "Use it or Lose It: Fair Use, Digital Media, and Film Studies." Professor Peter Jaszi and Center director Pat Aufderheide joined other experts to discuss the creative stranglehold of copyright clearance. "This is a crucially important issue," said University of South California's Elizabeth Monk Daley, dean of the School of Cinema-Television. Panel organizer Peter DeCherney noted that the copyright clearance environment now demonstrates "copyright extremism."

On March 17, Peter Jaszi introduced Untold Stories to Philadelphia at an evening program for lawyers, filmmakers and students sponsored by the local chapter of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. and the Greater Philadelphia Film Office. The event, "Is Copyright Killing the Documentary Film?", was designed to explore whether non-fiction filmmaking is threatened by the licensing demands of copyright owners of news footage, television, music and other works. Report co-author Peter Jaszi led off the discussion and was followed examples and heated discussion. Local filmmakers Fran McElroy, Maria Rodriguez and Debora Kodish, described the adverse pressures that the "clearance culture" had exerted on their projects. Trudi Brown of PBS affiliate WHYY, discussed how rights issues had slowed the pace of that station's long-time series of local history documentaries. Charles Wright, a Vice President at A&E television, emphasized that A&E actually encourages filmmakers to make use of fair use, "where appropriate."

Untold Stories is also scheduled for presentations at Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto and Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

At the INPUT conference in May, you'll be able to meet producers and commissioning editors creating some of the most innovative public TV programming internationally.

The Center is hosting a panel that showcases how creative producers and programmers can bring new makers, audiences and subjects to public TV. For instance, Jurrien Rood of VideoLetters co-designed a TV series that reunites friends long separated by the bitter and brutal wars of the Balkans. (This is the reality TV you've been waiting for!) Pat Van Heerden from South African public broadcasting tells how a project to celebrate ten post-apartheid years drew in young and new producers. And Mette Meyer from Denmark's TV2 talks about a project to create a new world-wide series on democracy today.