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UFVA Fair Use Contest 2.0

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University Film and Video Association
Sponsored by the Center for Social Media, School of Communication, American University

UFVA is hosting a contest for the best short documentaries employing fair use, made by higher education students and faculty.

Fair use is the legal use of other people’s copyrighted work without permission or payment—in certain circumstances. Fair use ensures that freedom of speech survives, and that copyright owners don’t become private censors.

The law does not specify exactly what is fair use in order to leave a great deal of flexibility for different creative communities and cultural changes over time. When in doubt, the courts turn to professional and creative practice and understanding. In the past, documentary filmmakers have found that broadcasters and cable casters, lawyers and insurers tell them that fair use is too hard to define, and therefore they cannot invoke it. In response to these restrictive policies, doc filmmakers came together and created a consensus document, The Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use, describing what their professional community deems as acceptable application of fair use. That statement, along with more information, is available at centerforsocialmedia.org/fairuse. Since the release of this Statement in 2005, the industry has seen incredible change—it is now becoming commonplace for doc filmmakers to assert their fair use rights.

Entrants should employ fair use in quoting material in their documentaries, using the Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use as a guide to their decision-making. In addition, entrants must explain what is fair used in their films and why it is fair use under the terms of the statement (see criteria below).

CALL FOR ENTRIES- MAY 1, 2008 DEADLINE (postmark)

ELIGIBILITY:

• Must have primary creative control of the work and have all rights and clearances for material not employed under fair use.
  
• Work must be submitted in NTSC, DVD (DATA only), miniDV, or via youtube* (For screening only. If selected, must provide a hard copy of the work on DVD (DATA only) or miniDV).

• Work must be 5 minutes or less
• Work must be a documentary in any genre, including but not limited to essay, satire, parody, historical, musical, and personal
• It must employ fair use in quoting copyrighted material
• Submission must include a paragraph describing how the documentary’s fair use falls within the guidelines set forth in the Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use

• $500 for best faculty only work, plus one year membership to UFVA
• $500 for best student only work, plus one year membership to UFVA
• Winners will be screened at the UFVA Conference in August, 2006

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