Kanopy Picks for World Book Day

April 22 is World Book Day. What does that mean to you? Check out one of these FREE-to-stream videos on the topic of Earth Day.

These videos are available through TBPL’s new video streaming service Kanopy, available on your smart TV, Roku, tablet, and more. Each month, you can view four different films from this service. Visit our webpage for more info and how to get started.

Other People’s Footage – Copyright and Fair Use This film explores the three questions crucial to determining fair use exemptions and presents illustrative examples from nonfiction, fiction, and experimental films that use pre-existing footage, music and sound from other individuals’ creations–without permission or paying fees.

Freedom of Expression – Resistance & Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property In 1998, university professor Kembrew McLeod (Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa) made headlines when he successfully trademarked the phrase “FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION” to call attention to the extremes of intellectual property law. But in the years since, as fewer and fewer corporations have come to dominate the media landscape, copyright law has only become more restrictive. In this provocative film, McLeod continues his fight against the corporate chokehold on creative expression, translating the abstractions of copyright law into an engaging story about corporate power and the power of art.

Google and the World Brain In 1937, the science fiction writer H. G. Wells imagined a “World Brain” containing all of the world’s knowledge, accessible to all people, that would be “so compact in its material form and so gigantic in its scope and possible influence” that it could transcend even nation states and governments. Seventy years later, Google set about realizing Wells’ vision, launching a massive project to scan millions of books from university library collections — and triggering a fierce backlash in the process. When it was discovered that over half of the first ten million books Google scanned were still in copyright, authors from around the world joined together to wage a fierce legal battle against the Internet giant, culminating in a dramatic courtroom showdown in 2011.

Copyright Criminals – Musical Sampling and Copyright Law This documentary traces the rise of hip-hop from the urban streets of New York to its current status as a multibillion-dollar industry. COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS examines the creative and commercial value of musical sampling, including the related debates over artistic expression, copyright law, and (of course) money.

Getting Published from the Great Courses: Mr. Bell unpacks the most important parts of a book proposal that you would send to an agent or a publisher (query, synopsis, and sample chapters) by defining each and breaking down what you should and shouldn’t do. He also gives invaluable advice on what to look for in an agent, how to negotiate a contract, the importance of copyrights, and the most important component: getting paid.