We frequently get questions from video creators about the rules for making use of other creators’ work in their own projects.

If a piece of art was created so long ago that its copyright has expired and it’s since fallen into the public domain, you’re free to make use of it any way that you want. (To learn more about using archival footage in your videos, check out our  informative Archival Storytelling book) But if a piece of art is still under copyright, you’ll want to make sure that you’re in the clear. Most U.S. Creators are aware of a legal doctrine here in the States called “fair use,” an exception to copyright law that lets you make use of copyrighted material for your own artistic purposes. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of confusion about exactly what constitutes fair use. Let’s try and clear up some of the misconceptions so you can better understand when you can incorporate others’ material into your videos.

(First, please be aware that nothing said by Videomaker should be construed as legal advice. If you’re really worried about your rights, you should consult an attorney or legal expert before you make any rash decisions.)

Here are some common misconceptions that we see from video creators:

“This counts as Fair Use because I gave credit to the original artist.” Giving credit where it’s due is always a best practice – and just good manners. However, giving credit does NOT instantly bestow fair use protection upon you. At best, a polite tip of the hat may encourage the original artist to allow you to use their work for free. But this is entirely up to the artist’s discretion. They don’t have to let you use their work just because you acknowledged that they are the original creator and, if they don’t like what you’ve done, they can still try to make you remove it.

“I’m not making any money off of this, so it must be fair use.” Again, whether or not you make money can be a consideration in fair use, but it is not dispositive. In fact, some fair use works can be sold for profit. The fact that you’re not profiting may again make the original artist more sympathetic to your case, but it doesn’t mean that you’re automatically covered by fair use.

“I found this original artwork on the Internet, so obviously it’s free for me to use.” Just because an artist places his or her work on the Internet does not mean that they are giving you carte blanche permission to use it as you will. The same copyright restrictions that apply offline still apply online.

Again, acknowledging that you don’t own the original artistic work, giving credit to the original artist or using a work without any intention to profit will often encourage an original artist to let you use his work, but it does not necessarily mean that your work will fall under fair use.

You’ll always want to make sure that you’ve got your rights protected when you put together a video project.  Besides Archival Storytelling, you can get more help in keeping your project legally in the clear with our Indie Film/Video Legal Documents DVD.

Videographers are in the business of creating artistic, instructional, or archival moving images. Creating and sharing original work is what it’s all about. But what if you don’t have the perfect sequence to tell your story? Or what about the times when in order to tell your story effectively you need historic or iconic footage from another source? That’s when online sources of stock footage, images, and other audio and video content can come to the rescue. Sometimes these sources even provide inspiration for what direction to take your story.

At Videomaker we have an ever expanding archive of sound effects available. You should really check out our sound effects resource page. But if in addition to a sound file you need to flesh out your story with video from the news, from unique places around the world, or from historical events, there are many resources available to you.

Among the great online sources for audio and video is Getty Images Inc. And now Getty is home to an even larger collection. This week Getty announced that they are adding video from Bloomberg, the American Museum of Natural History, MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, Barcroft Media, and WGBH in Boston. These additions bring the Getty licensing library to over 825,000 video clips. From clips of produce markets in Tehran, Iran (from WGBH) to footage of Paul McCartney marrying Nancy Shevell this fall (from Barcroft), you’ll find amazing footage at Getty.

Getty Images puts it this way: “Leveraging creative research, trend data and analysis of the visual communications landscape, Getty Images has selected content from each partner to create collections that meet the growing demand across media, broadcast and educational segments for fact-based footage including news, science, technology, iconic moments and historical events.”

Getty isn’t the only source for audio, still, and video files, but it is among the best.

The video contests and festival season starts to heat up as Spring approaches, and we have news of one video contest whose deadline is just a few days away. Do you have what it takes to win?

“The Cutting Room Challenge” video contest, from Unlimited Stock Media, is free to enter, and the 1st prize is an iPad, so you’ve got nothing to lose and a cool new gadget to win. Check out their contest page site for information.

Contestants receive a free collection of HD video clips and use them to create a video on a given topic. You need to download stock footage from Unlimited Stock Media to make your video for this contest, which is cool, since the deadline is just a few days away – no shooting!

Your video has to be 5 minutes or less and can be a short documentary, music video, commercial – it’s up to you – just follow the guidelines in the contest details.  The deadline is March 23, 2011, 12pm PST to upload your video to Unlimited Stock Media’s Vimeo contest page.

This feature challenge is “People in Need.” Are you in need of winning? Check it out!

You might not be able to go to the upcoming South by Southwest Interactive Festival,  known the world over simply as SXSWi, or sometimes just “South by Southwest” or SxS  – but there are other festivals and contests you can attend – and not leave your home.

We have a contest and festival page that’s chock full of fun events to enter,  go to Videomaker‘s  contest and festival page on our website to find out more.

I’ve personally won a number of video contests, and in many cases, it was because of knowing How to enter, not just What to enter.  I wrote a quick tips to entering contests guide for Videomaker, maybe it will help you, too.

Good Luck!

Every once in a while a cool video comes along that makes you just want to watch it over and over again.  Such is the case with this one – put together by Olympus celebrating 50 years of the little Pen still camera.

Although this is a still camera, the presentation appears to have been done using video editing skills. Like we’ve been talking about a lot lately, the lines between still cameras and video are blurring, and this stop-motion collection of more than 60,000 still photos is a great example of that. Read the rest of this entry »

From a Blastwave FX press release:

Blastwave FX (www.blastwavefx.com), the HD sound effects label, today announced its new website which now features 423 downloadable sound effects packs.  Keeping up with the demand for content that is available at the click of a button, Blastwave FX offers packaged sounds featured as:

POWER PACKS: 25 sounds for $25 from Production Elements to General Sound Effects.

SCENE BUILDERS: Scene specific collections designed for those high impact movie scenes that include car chases to zombie attacks.

”These downloadable sound effects packs will help get audio professionals moving forward with precision and efficiency,” said Ric Viers of Blastwave FX. “Quality and convenience is our focus.” Read the rest of this entry »

iStockphoto.com sent us a nice little note today that their new Royalty Free Music section iStockaudio was now open for business. They’re not announcing it to the wide world until March, but figured Videomaker readers might want to get a heads up, and get a chance to upload some of your original scores to the site before everyone comes knocking. It’s also a good place to look for new royalty free music for your video projects.

The new site works similarly to their stock footage and stock photo sites.  You pre-buy credits from iStockphoto and can spend them on downloading royalty free tracks directly. The cost of the tracks is tied to “complexity” which may be a bit more subjective than how they charge for photos and audio (based on physical size). The tracks themselves are in .wav format, 16bit, 44.1kHz or 48kHz, the latter matching the audio sample rate for video.

So if you have some audio tracks or sound effects you wish to sell, or if you’re in need of a piece of audio you just can’t make yourself, head on over and check out iStockaudio.