You are half right Myles. Promotional copies can indeed be resold but you need to read the decision and not just the EFF press release. The key reason these promotional copies could be resold and were not the property of the rights holder is that they were sent out UNSOLICITED. The court in part relied on the law that if a company sends you a product you did not order you get to keep it and do not have to pay for it ( and could resell it). Film Festival screeners are in any case I have ever dealt with and I have deal with hundreds if not thousands are always solicited. The festival contacts the rights holder/distributor and requests the screener. In any request I have been involved with not only is it clear that the copy should be returned by I often requires the person requesting it to agree that they will personally maintain physical control of the copy at all times and not even allow other people at the festival to see it other than in committee setting ( I warned you I was tough). As a practical matter I can 't spend a lot of time checking for screeners to be returned but to be honest when it is a fest I don't know well, I will go after them. As Dennis mentioned screeners come with nasty onscreen warnings that they are screeners and often other wording that they may not be displayed and are property of X company. Forgetting copyright , this makes them extremely inappropriate for a library. More than a few of the European rights holders use screeners where the screener warning blocks the subtitles.
Basically unless the library gets a written legal statement from the donor that the item was unsolicited and there was no request for a return, it is not legal copy. I don't know this particular festival but I would be stunned if most of their 400 plus films were not solicited and did not come with a request for return. The catch is the majority of this is done by email which has the same force as a written contract but does not exactly leave the "paper" trail you seem to think would be involved in a "contract" I may be wrong about that but again trust me I have been dealing with festival requests for over 20 years and I have never sent either an unsolicited screener or one I did not ask to be returned. On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 9:31 AM, Jaeschke, Myles <mjae...@tulsalibrary.org>wrote: > Jessica,**** > > This is not true… screeners and promotional copies are indeed legal copies > and available to add to a collection if a library chooses to do so. Of > course if a contract was signed it’s a different story.**** > > ** ** > > https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2011/01/04-0**** > > ** ** > > *From:* videolib-boun...@lists.berkeley.edu [mailto: > videolib-boun...@lists.berkeley.edu] *On Behalf Of *Jessica Rosner > *Sent:* Sunday, August 05, 2012 12:08 PM > *To:* videolib@lists.berkeley.edu > > *Subject:* Re: [Videolib] Film festival submissions?**** > > ** ** > >
VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and distributors.
