This book presents a guide to the resource acquisition, legal, and financial necessities of producing an independent film.  Every aspect of the planning and execution of the business side of filmmaking is discussed, including hypothetical situations based on the personal experience of the entertainment lawyers who co-authorized the book.  The book introduces the roles of producer and lawyer, then outlines the film development process through deal making, financing, hiring, licensing and distribution.

As is pertains to my project, this book provides valuable insight into the warranted concern that filmmakers have had with the 21st century dispute over Internet distribution rights.  In the case of Viacom v. Youtube, the exclusive rights per the 1976 Copyright Act for copyright owners to reproduce their works became the basis for allegations against YouTube for a count of direct copyright infringement.  The authors of this book advise filmmakers to negotiate with distributors on the basis that they "cannon distribute on the Net until there is adequate 'border protection' to prevent access outside licensed territories" (132).

Erickson, Gunnar, Harris Tulchin, Mark Halloran, and J. Gunnar Erickson. The Independent Film Producer's Survival Guide: A Business and Legal Sourcebook . New York: Schirmer Trade Books, 2005

 

This article covers the immediate response the YouTube had to the inital takedown request made to them on Oct 20, 2006 by the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC).

In relation to my project, JASRAC requested through DMCA takedown request procedures that YouTube remove nearly 30,000 unauthorized video files that were uploaded by YouTube users. This furthers my project research into the issue of copyright infringement as it pertains to internet video-sharing service.

 Tanzil, Sarah. "YouTube Deletes 30,000 Files After a Copyright Complaint." The New York Times 21 Oct. 2006: Technology.

The rights to intellectual property and the revenue thereof can make or break an entrepreneurial business.  This book covers the gambit of trade secrets that tech-savvy entrepreneurs may need to protect intellectual property in the dynamic arena of copyright law, licensing, patenting, and trademark acquisition.  The book makes examples of the infringement issues faced by international business icons such as Microsoft and Amazon.com.

As it pertains to my project, the book also goes over the provisions for statutory versus actual damages in the 1976 Copyright Act (115).  These provisions are under review in the Viacom v. YouTube case.

Guide, Gilbert. The Entrepreneur's Guide to Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks, Trade Secrets & Licensing . New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 2004

This book acts as a guide for understanding the nuances of basic business law. Topics discussed include hypothetical legal pitfalls and fundamental solutions within the legal domain. Issues reviewd in the book range from labor law and contract negotioation to e-commerce and intellectual property. Each chapter includes a Brain Teaser section which allows the readers to test their knowledge of real-world applications and Business Law, including Curry's analysis of current cases.

Pertaining to my project, Curry's answer to whether or not Google should be liable to uploads that link to copyrighted materials is applicalbe (230).

Curry, Ellen. MBA Fundamentals Business Law (Kaplan MBA Fundamentals) . New York: Kaplan Publishing, 2007

The development of internet communities, the phenomenon of file-sharing, chat room hosting, and surfing are all aspects of cyberspace social behaviors that have coalesced to create a thriving social organism, or ecology.  In the book, Huberman makes a scientific observation of this phenomenon as statistically goverened patterns. While discussing the application of such physics concepts as Brownian motion and Zipf's Law, Huberman researches the mechanics of internet social behaviors, and the value of such findings to the future development of internet busines models and application architecture.

In relation to my project, and the accusations from Viacom, YouTube is being accused of actually inducing illegal behavior.  Huberman looks at various problematic features of file-sharing networks, and their contribution to the dilemma of creating user-friendly file-sharing functions at the risk of creating illegally replicated material (69).

Huberman, Bernardo A. The Laws of the Web: Patterns in the Ecology of Information . Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2001

 

This book goes over the trends in multimedia that are pushing multimedia services into unprecidented technological formats. There is an in-depth analysis of the multimedia security technologies applied to digital data as prevention of copyright abuse or violation. These various copyright protection techniques inlude digital watermarking, steganography, fingerprinting and data hiding among others.

For the purpose of my project, the book discusses how the ease of communication of digital data is making it a globally accessible commodity. This is why positive internet video sharing service and televisions industry partnerships are being fostered. There is a growing demographic of interenet file-sharing service users who can be reached with multimedia entertainment. The future of these internet hosting / television industry busines partnerships is being forged out of the new technologies in digital data sharing.

Also of interest for my project is that the book also addresses the matter at the root of the uneasiness and friction between multimedia industries like the television companies and the internet video-sharing environment in general. That problem is arising from the polarized interests of intellectual rights owners and interntet end-users seeking free access to information.--"...The development of digital technologies permitting transmission of digital data over the internet has raised questions about how these rights apply in the new environment.  How can digital intellectual property be made publicly available while guaranteeing ownership of the intellectual rights by the rights-holder and free access to information by the user?" (3).

• Lu,Chun-Shien. Multimedia Security: Steganography and Digital Watermarking Techniques for Protection of Intellectual Property. Hersey: Idea Group Inc., 2005

 

Television companies and internet video-sharing services are conflicting on issues of copyright infringement. YouTube, owned by Google Inc., is no stranger to the barrage of litigation that has ensued because of illegal postings on the site. Viacom, Inc. notably filed a recent lawsuit against YouTube for broadcasting clips from the network's affiliated television programs without legal permission. This project explores the role of copyright ownership in the volatile relationship between the television industry's copyright owners and the Internet video-sharing service icon, YouTube. Even Japanese television companies have accused YouTube of illegally displaying clips from their copyrighted programming. Google Inc. has faced a multitude of requests for copyrighted snippets to be removed from the YouTube site. Faced with the possibility of crippled business, Google, Inc. is addressing this problem both legally and technologically. The company has put efforts into researching and developing video-recognition system technology that would automatically disable the use of copyrighted clips without permission. My project will study the nuances of copyright law that are at risk of infringement in video-sharing sites, and specifically within the television companies' legal cases and negotiations. In addition the project will seek to define and discuss the technological aspect of enforcing copyright adherence among video-sharing end users.