Archival Storytelling features roundtable discussions with people like Rick Prelinger, Claire Aguilar, Stanley Nelson and Sam Green and conversations with experts in the field like my personal hero, intellectual property law activist Lawrence Lessig. The inclusion of people from different disciplines – historians, archivists, lawyers and filmmakers – is very useful in conveying the complexity of the subject but there is also lots of good practical advice to help you get your films made. In fact, it may even make you think differently about how you tell your stories. After all, being able to draw on and build upon the creative output of others is a creative act in itself, and can lead to all sorts of delightful possibilities. Just think of the way music is creatively juxtaposed with images, or how archive can bring history to life or give us new perspectives on social issues. Not to mention contemporary mashups and other creative products of digital convergence culture.

Archival Storytelling focuses on American intellectual property law but it does also deal with legal issues in other countries, for instance fair dealing in the United Kingdom. The authors have kindly allowed us to include an excerpt from a conversation with Hubert Best, a partner at the law firm Best & Soames in London and an internationally recognized expert in intellectual property and media law. Best talks about British law and shows why fair dealing in the UK is so different to fair use in the US.

Download the extract here: archival-storytelling-conversation-with-hubert-best

This document is a code of best practices that helps creators, online providers, copyright holders, and others interested in the making of online video interpret the copyright doctrine of fair use. Fair use is the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment under some circumstances.

This is a guide to current acceptable practices, drawing on the actual activities of creators, as discussed among other places in the study Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video and backed by the judgment of a national panel of experts. It also draws, by way of analogy, upon the professional judgment and experience of documentary filmmakers, whose own code of best practices has been recognized throughout the film and television businesses.

Note: This applies to the US, not the UK.