By Dennis Yang, Techdirt. – April 13, 2010 at 11:29PM
If you haven’t seen Red Letter Media’s excellent reviews of the Star Wars films, The Phantom Menace and The Attack of the Clones, then you might want to carve out three hours out of your day and watch them (the reviews are 70-minutes and 90-minutes long, respectively) — they’re incredible. (Warning: he does use some NSFW language occasionally.)
So, it’s very sad to hear that Mike Stoklasa, the writer & director of the Red Letter Media reviews, is considering not producing any more reviews, out of fear of being slapped with a copyright lawsuit. Stoklasa says:
“The thing is, I’m no lawyer. But I had someone actually talk to a copyright lawyer, and they didn’t know what to make of the reviews. It’s a new thing, You can get away with using a clip from a movie for the purpose of review or commentary, but can you dissect an entire film like that? There’s commentary and it’s part satire [because of the character, Mr. Plinkett] and part review and part educational as well because there’s elements of filmmaking insights.”
Stoklasa’s reviews are innovative and entertaining and take movie reviewing to a whole new level by remixing movie clips into the review itself. In doing so, they are emerging as a whole new art form. While more traditional movie reviews and satire can use clips of movies as a result of fair use, Stoklasa could be treading on new ground with his works. That said, this could be an interesting case if he were to get sued, because he would likely win, which would then redraw the boundaries for fair use, which would be a great thing. So, Mike Stoklasa, please don’t let the threat of copyright lawsuits stop you from continuing to produce your excellent reviews — to do so would be a travesty.
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