Is Putting Every Frame Of A Movie Into A Photo Copyright Infringement? Should It Be?

from the questions,-questions,-questions dept

Mon, Jul 14th 2008 5:47pm — Mike Masnick

There's been a bit of buzz going around the blog/social media world over someone who made a photograph that shows a snapshot from every second of the movie The Big Lebowski (most of the posts about it erroneously claim that it's every frame of the movie, but a quick scan through the images shows that it's more like one frame every second -- i.e., approximately 1 frame out of every 30). What's interesting to me, though, is that the photo is listed under a Creative Commons license -- and I'm wondering if Universal Studios (NBC Universal) knows about this, and if it would freak out. It's difficult to see how this photo could possibly hurt the commercial viability of The Big Lebowski. It's quite clear that, if anything, it's a celebration of the movie.

And that's one of the key points of conflict that people run into with copyright these days. So many efforts by fans to celebrate, promote or otherwise share some aspect of a movie is often viewed as copyright infringement by the copyright holders. Hopefully, Universal chooses to overlook this creative endeavor -- or, even better, help promote it. But, given the way NBC Universal has reacted in the past, somehow that seems unlikely.

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Filed Under: copyright, movies, photographs, the big lebowski
Companies: nbc universal

18 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2008 @ 6:21pm

If it showed every second of a movie, it would capture 1 out of every 24 frames, not 30. Motion pictures are shot and projected at 24 frames per second (in North America). When movies are transferred to DVD, they do some video voodoo (repeating certain fields) to stretch it into the 29.97 frames per second that our TVs understand.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2008 @ 6:24pm

It's one in 24 frames, not one in thirty...
Most movies are shot in 24fps film not 30fps video, so each frame in the picture would in actuality be 1/24th of each second. A special scanning procedure is used to transfer film to video for home video releases.
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Anonymous Coward #2, 14 Jul 2008 @ 6:32pm

I must be slow...
AC #1 beat me to it regarding the 24fps/30ps thing. Video is in fact 60 fields per second (actually 59.94 a second); to make 24 film frames to fit 30 video frames, three video fields are scanned for the first film frame, then two fields for the next frame, then three, then two...and so on. Under normal video playback the effect is hard to notice.
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Jake, 14 Jul 2008 @ 6:40pm

Leaving aside the question of why anybody would invest so much time and effort into such an endeavour, one thirtieth -or one twenty-fourth if the artist got hold of an original print- is well below the maximum stipulated by fair use rules, so he's probably got a case.
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bobbknight, 14 Jul 2008 @ 6:57pm

Ummm
The photo is w=one of those things that someone with to much time and to little sense "creates".
I think it would have been much more interesting if the frames from the movie actually depicted a frame from a scene in the movie. Or the movie poster it's self. They have software that does that, and it would have been much more creative.
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Anonymous Cowherd, 14 Jul 2008 @ 7:02pm

It's fair use
Only 4% or so of the work, noncommercial use, and noncompeting use -- that's three of the four fair use factors...
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Heavens, 14 Jul 2008 @ 9:07pm

AC 1 2 and 3
You win todays lame award. You'll have to share it being as you are all equal in your ability to stack facts no one cares about. The post does not say what medium is used for the 30 fps measurement so why go off. Get this, just like your days back in stage crew and the AV club...no one cares and you missed the point.
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David McMillan, 15 Jul 2008 @ 12:51am

Anonymous Coward #2

you know I've been working in with a lot digital video, cleaning up, up sampling, de-interlacing ect... put I think you just made me understand what a 3:2 pulldown filler does. I'm socked that some how I missed this information for so long. And it's so simple.

I'm a video geek that use to render my 3d work at 60field a second to get smoother motion. And even use interlacing to get more colors out of my old computers.
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PaulT (profile), 15 Jul 2008 @ 1:11am

It depends, really. I would argue that even if it were every frame, the real value of the movie is in its dialogue, music and plotting. That is to say, what the film actually is cannot be adequately shown via these still images. So, nobody is going to view these images instead of watching the movie, and it could inspire people to watch the movie who wouldn't have otherwise bothered. It's also non-commercial use, essentially an art project, so nobody's making illicit gains.

So, no harm done here. If Lebowski were a silent movie, or this was being sold for profit, it would be different. I do wonder if the CC licence will cause issues however. i.e. although the project is OK under a CC licence, the author doesn't actually own the copyright to any of the images. So, would someone using the images under the terms of the project's CC licence still be liable for copyright infringement? I fear they would.
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Crazy Coyote, 15 Jul 2008 @ 4:05am

New England has given many tax relief incentives and other financial incentives to film in certain cities. In my view if the movie makers use my tax money to make a movie the movie makers forfeit any rights to a copyright. The residents of that city should own any copyrights since they actually built that ready made movie set.
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A ranting lunatic, 15 Jul 2008 @ 6:33am

What's next for copyright infringement cases? MPAA forum trolling and subsequent prosecuting for related comments? Googling movie titles and suing websites with images from films? [/exaggeration]

Ridiculous!

After reading this blog for a bit now, its just nuts to see how retarded the whole intellectual property premise really is set up.
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- Willton, 15 Jul 2008 @ 7:16am
  
  Re:
  After reading this blog for a bit now, its just nuts to see how retarded the whole intellectual property premise really is set up.
  
  This blog hardly depicts a fair sample of how intellectual property is used. The amount of times copyright is used in non-ridiculous ways far outweighs the silly stories, such as the one above, but its those ridiculous stories that get published, and its the ridiculous stories that this blog unduly seizes upon.
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  - Kiba, 15 Jul 2008 @ 9:38am
    
    Re: Re:
    You mean the GNU General Public License and other copyleft license?
    
    I am sorry. Most uses of copyright are not as beneficial as you think. GPL and other licenses are the exception, rather than the rule.
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DS, 15 Jul 2008 @ 8:25am

Um, yes.

Sort of like if you took every word from a movie and put it in a text file would be copyright infringement. I don't know why this is even a question.
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- BigPoppa, 15 Jul 2008 @ 11:16am
  
  Re:
  But what if you put every 24th word and put it in a text file just as the person who made the pic put 1 out of ever 24 or so frames?
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  - DS, 15 Jul 2008 @ 1:59pm
    
    Re: Re:
    BigPoppa, That's not a fair comparison. It's more like if you removed every 24th letter. A movie can be a slide show, and you'd still know what's going on. If you want to get technical, the screen in a theater is mostly white(blank) then it is movie. But it's not the blank that's the movie, it's the images.
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derlo, 29 Oct 2008 @ 2:39pm

new file engine search!
If you like it and want more I would recommend you to visit http://newfileengine.com/

There you can find everything- I did!
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chiipmunk=], 7 Dec 2008 @ 12:03am

something....
could you try and get every second pictures (frame pics) from alvin and the chipmunks?? please
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