Vidding news of the OMG kind!

[brihana25]

U.S. Library Of Congress Grants DMCA Exemption for Vidders!!

For the next two years, the Library of Congress has issued (or will be issuing later today) a DMCA exemption for makers of noncommercial remix, which includes vidding, anime music videos, political remix videos and the like.

... makers of noncommercial video ... are also permitted to

Comments

[andreth47]

That is fantastic news! Seriously, I'm amazed and happy and kind of flailing over here!

\o/

[brihana25]

When I saw that, my heart just started pounding and I damn near started crying.

It's such a small thing, but at the same time, it's such a huge step.

[or_mabinogi]

The way I had understood it was that using video clips is most definitely okay. But there's probably still some grey area in regards to the music. Unless you go all out and sample/remix various songs in your videos.

Actually, this is they I had always understood Fair Use in regards to fanvids, but it's nice to finally have a legal precedent on the matter.

[maichan]

This ruling does not mean that all vids and other remixed works are entirely out of the fog of legal uncertainty; rather, it means that people making noncommercial remix video do not have to worry about violating the DCMA's anticircumvention provisions (which otherwise might prohibit ripping a protected DVD), which are separate from ordinary U.S. copyright law and which don't otherwise allow for fair use. There is a requirement that circumvention must be necessary, because the Copyright Office believes that screen capture software might in some circumstances produce results of sufficient quality. As Tisha Turk testified, however, this is unlikely to be true for vidders.

Source

[littleheaven70]

It's not a total fix, but it's a major step in the right direction. They've basically made it legal to rip DVD's. How cool is that? I'm not American but since the DVDs I'm ripping are, I guess American law still applies in that case, so I am also doing the dance of joy :o)

[nialla42]

My translation is you're not going to get busted for circumventing DMCA technology, but you could still have other legal issues with the copyright holders of the actual material. Music will be especially problematic because vidders use the entire song, not just clips.

This blog post focuses on DRM locked e-books and "jailbreaking" phones, but I think it gives a good overview of the situation in general.