Copyright and Fair Use

@PerrinKyla

Copyright and fair use laws can be interpreted in many different ways, but it is ultimately up to the federal court to decide what is and isn’t a copyrighted production and what is a fare use production. In the first Star Wars video, “Star Wars Fan Film – Essence of the Force,” it seems like it is suppose to be a Mountain Dew commercial. I would argue that the clips from the Star Wars movies are fair use because it could be said that all the clips transform it into a parody of the Star Wars movies. However, it is said that even parodies have been sued in a federal court for infringement. There is also a question in this video of whether or not this is a real commercial or video of Mountain Dew. It says at the end of the video that the video is copyrighted but it doesn’t say what corporation copyrighted it. In the second video “Star Wars Saga (The Best Trance Remix Montage),” it is similar in the terms of being considered under fair use, but the only big difference is the music. There is a question in this video of whether or not the music is original, or if the maker of this video just took the music from somewhere else and put it to this video. In my opinion it seems that no matter what someone creates it can always be seen as plagiarized. “All ideas are secondhand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and used daily…” (Jonathan Lethem pg.68).

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