Michael Donaldson

BIG NEWS FOR DOC MAKERS: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS GRANTS DMCA EXEMPTIONS

Big news from the Library of Congress today. In their three-year annual review of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, restrictions on documentary makers related to the fair use of copyrighted materials were significantly eased. Attorney Michael C. Donaldson, who assembled the coalition lobbying for these changes and provided pro bono counsel, commented, “Documentary filmmakers have been freed of the high price extracted by rights holders, or the high price of possible criminal prosecution, when they need to reach public domain material or material to be used pursuant to fair use. All they have to do is follow a few simple […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 26, 2010
MICHAEL PAUL STEPHENSON, “BEST WORST MOVIE”

The most unlikely act of cultural excavation and redemption, Michael Paul Stephenson’s Best Worst Movie is a hilarious and poignant celebration of not only the communal experience of making and watching movies but the sheer randomness of life itself. The doc is Stephenson’s attempt to find out why a seemingly execrable B-movie he made as a child actor, Troll 2, has garnered a cult following of viewers who not only get off on its badness but also find an odd kind of joy in its screwy storytelling. While Stephenson is present in the film, he smartly chooses as the doc’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 12, 2010
SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN INFRINGING DOC RULE

Yesterday, in an 8-1 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a statute that would have infringed on certain documentary makers’ First Amendment rights. Relating to the depiction of animal cruelty and killing on screen, the statute, by criminalizing such depictions, would have limited filmmakers’ abilities to cover any number of subjects ranging from hunting to our food industry to, ironically, animal abuse itself. The IFP New York was one of several organizations filing an amicus brief in support of the filmmaker filing the case, a documentarian named Robert Stevens who was sentenced to 37 months in Federal prison for […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 21, 2010

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