"Report of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Society for Cinema Studies, "Fair Usage Publication of Film Stills

Since the mid-1960s, the serious study of the cinema has expanded enormously. Many universities, colleges, and high schools now offer courses in the area. Moreover, scholarly publishing on cinema has burgeoned and gained respectability. Several scholarly presses now regularly bring out books on the subject, and there are refereed film journals. One important facet of the rise of cinema as an academic discipline has been a new concern to illustrate articles and books with frame enlargements rather than publicity photos. Publicity photos are made on the set with still cameras, to simulate a scene in the film. They almost invariably use different framings and lighting set-ups than are used during the filming of the scene with the motion-picture camera. Some publicity photos even represent actions that are not displayed in the finished film. Such photos can be of use for certain purposes, as when historians study lost footage from films like Greed or The Magnificent Ambersons. For purposes of analyzing finished films, however, many scholars believe that photographs made from frames of the actual film strip are preferable, since they reproduce an actual composition that appears in a shot. The legal status of such reproductions of frames has remained problematic. Does the use of a frame enlargement violate copyright? Should the scholar contact the copyright holder to obtain permission to reproduce frames, and, if the firm demands a fee for such permission, does it have to be paid? Similarly, for those scholars who use publicity photographs, there arises the question of whether their reproduction requires permission from and payment to a film company or archive. Actual practice in the area of illustrating film-related publications has been confused and inconsistent. Some American academic presses and journals do not consider the obtaining of permission necessary, since their authors are using the illustrations for scholarly and educational purposes. Other presses insist that their authors secure such permission. In some cases, authors have been forbidden by the copyright owner to reproduce the frames and have had to publish without illustrations or use a poor substitute, such as sketches of the original frames. In

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• The Preservation of American Television and Video

  David Culbert•Historical Journal Of Film Radio…•1996

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