The body responsible for interpreting copyright law within the United States has broadened the exemptions available to video artists seeking to re-use copyrighted material in not-for-profit work. The US Copyright Office’s judgment means that short sections of pre-existing footage can now be legally used in new pieces; for example, online video memes (such as the one based on a segment of footage from the film Downfall) would now be protected from copyright claims.
A recording of a performance of “Numbers”, directed by Vladimir Shcherban, performed in secret by the Belarus Free Theatre, an outlaw theatre group in Europe’s last dictatorship.
Now watch
Video: Natalia Koliada on surviving in Europe’s last dictatorship
Video: Sir Tom Stoppard presents… Belarus Free Theatre
On Tuesday, 13 July, Index on Censorship hosted a very special event at the Free Word Centre in London. Index played host to the Belarus Free Theatre, an outlaw company that defies Europe’s last dictatorship to produce challenging, contemporary drama
Award-winning playwright Sir Tom Stoppard, who has long associations with both Index on Censorship and the Belarus Free Theatre, introduced the evening:
Now watch
Video: Natalia Koliada on surviving in Europe’s last dictatorship
Banned in their native Belarus and renowned for staging uncensored performances underground, Belarus Free Theatre is a rare voice of dissent in Europe’s last dictatorship. Co-founder Natalia Koliada explains what life is like for her theatre group
The easiest way for me to describe the situation in Belarus is to ask you to imagine… Just imagine, you sit in the evening, you talk to your friend….the next day that friend is kidnapped and killed. It was my husband and his friend Dmitry Zavadsky. They sat and discussed their lives, their wives and their children but the next day he was dead
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT4no1-Hfqk
On Monday, government officials attempted to prevent publication of an embarrassing video of President Viktor Yanukovych. The video shows a burst of wind flinging a wreath at the President during an official ceremony with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev. Despite the government’s best efforts, it was obtained by the website Ukrayinska Pravda from an undisclosed television crew, and posted on YouTube. Yanukovych and Medvedev were attending a ceremony to commemorate World War II veterans.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has criticised Wikileaks, over its release of a video showing a 2007 US helicopter attack that killed 12 people in Baghdad. Gates said the videos released by the group were out of context and provided an incomplete picture of the battlefield, comparing it to war as seen “through a soda straw.” “These people can put out anything they want, and they’re never held accountable for it. There’s no before and there’s no after,” Gates said.
On 5 April, Wikileaks, the website that publishes sensitive leaked material, released a video showing a 2007 US military airstrike that killed about a dozen Iraqis in eastern Baghdad. Among the dead were a 22-year-old Reuters photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, and his driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40. The Pentagon had previously blocked an attempt by Reuters to obtain the video through a freedom of information request. Wikileaks director Julian Assange said his organisation had to break through military encryption to view the footage.
