Poking Holes in the DMCA - Page 3

However, given the DMCA, even short clips that I would previously considered "fair use" are now off-limits. I cannot use them, and readers will not know about them. I can describe them, of course, but much like describing color to a blind person, it's difficult to express in print how good some of these interviews and documentaries are.54

Ed Driscoll, a writer whose work has appeared in such magazines as Audio/Video Interiors, Electronic House, Home Automation, and Smart TV and Sound, has published a number of reviews on Blogcritics. He has noted 55 some of his reviews that would have been improved had he been legally permitted to circumvent CSS in order to quote from the works. Below are quotations from two of his reviews that show where passages that would be enhanced by a quotation from the DVD:

    Law & Order Arrives on DVD:
    "Everybody's Favorite Bagman", Law & Order's pilot episode (and included on this DVD), was shot on 16mm, for a deliberately crude, grainy and streetwise look. As Wolf explains on the DVD's documentary, when it came time to run the pilot on national TV, executives at NBC thought its image quality was below their standards, and it took a direct OK from Brandon Tartikoff for it to air.56

    The Message is the Medium: Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi come to DVD:
    The Koyaanisqatsi DVD comes with a fairly comprehensive video interview of Reggio and his soundtrack composer, Philip Glass. At one point, Reggio refers to technology as "the beast", and an oppressive one at that. And yet, Reggio, his cinematographer, the brilliant Ron Fricke and Glass each push technology to the limit while simultaneously attacking it. At one point in Koyaanisqatsi, during a rapidly speeded-up night cityscape, the camera pans, in a perfectly fluid motion past a huge Miesian office building and thousands of cars whirring past underneath. Think of the technology involved in that camera movement: Selecting a camera designed to shoot a frame or two a second to get that speeded-up look. And loading it with the right film stock to shoot at night, the right filter on the lens to shoot in nothing but city lights, the right motorized head to allow the camera to pan at an ultra-low speed, etc. And then have the lab properly develop the film and time the prints, etc. And then add Glass's music, largely performed on synthesizers in a recording studio.57

Continued on the next page Page 1Page 2 — Page 3 — Page 4Page 5Page 6

Article tags

Spread the word
Bookmark and Share
Profile image for eric-olsen

Article Author: Eric Olsen

Career media professional Eric Olsen is honored to be the founder and publisher of Blogcritics.org, which, quite frankly, rules - as do his wife and four children.

Visit Eric Olsen's author pageEric Olsen's Blog

Read comments on this article, and add some feedback of your own

Article comments

Add your comment, speak your mind

Personal attacks are NOT allowed.
Please read our comment policy.
Please preview your comment.

blogcritics lists for Nov 24, 2009

fresh articles Most recent articles site-wide

fresh comments Most recent comments site-wide

most comments Most comments in 24hrs

top writers Most prolific Blogcritics for October

top commenters Most prolific Commenters in 24 hrs