However, there's an entire world of parodies and comedies out there (like the famous Chad Vader, Day Shift Manager) worth watching as well. There are dozens more out there, including some feature-length epics that took some serious dedication to make (and an almost equal level of dedication to watch).Īs you may have noticed we focused on the more serious end of the spectrum here. Posted March 2nd, 2018 by Stephen & filed under Copyright, Fair Use.These 10 short fan films only scratch the surface of what Star Wars fans have created.
Indeed, the purpose of copyright is to encourage creators to make works and advance our culture, and this this is exactly what works like Star War: The Animated Movie, Star Wars: Uncut, and The Empire Strikes Back: Uncut all do. Ultimately, all I’m saying here is that I wish the law more clearly supported fan creations like these because they are tremendously creative, original works, and I think the world is better with them in it. Nevertheless, it’s not hard to imagine a different copyright holder being less friendly to a work like this and blocking its creation/distribution. Thankfully, Lucasfilm embraced Pugh’s work, and even actively supported the creation of its sequel, The Empire Strikes Back: Uncut. Indeed, our fair use statute guarantees that there are always arguments against fair use, even in the best cases. However, while it strikes me that this work has a stronger fair use claim than The Animated Movie, it’s still not a slam dunk for Pugh. The result is a fascinating piece of art that can only exist thanks both to modern technology and the power of our fair use statute. He then took all the pieces and reassembled them into a new version of A New Hope. This could be as animation, papercraft, live re-creation, sock puppets - whatever.
He divided A New Hope into 473 fifteen second pieces, and asked people on the internet to take a piece and remake it however they wanted to. In 2010 Casey Pugh set out on an ambitious art project. This situation reminds me of my favorite Star Wars fan creation - Star Wars: Uncut. Instead, what I’m saying is this sort of work definitely should be fair use, and we shouldn’t have to worry about it. Indeed, since it’s still there, it seems likely that Lucasfilm is ok with the work. To be clear, I don’t think Lucasfilm is likely to sue Dekker or have this video removed from YouTube. And it’s not hard to imagine Dekker never creating a work like this because he was worried about Lucasfilm’s reaction. While I’d argue that his work is exactly the type of thing that fair use should protect, there are definitely arguments against fair use, here. It should be obvious why this is important for something like Dekker’s video. In turn, this can chill the creation of new works that use other works at all because of the fear of infringement. The downside, however, is that this balancing test is often quite unclear, even to experts, and it can be hard to decide with 100% certainty when something is fair use. The upside of this statute is that it’s very flexible and doesn’t limit fair use to specific types of copies. Instead, it tells us to look at 4 different factors, weigh the arguments for and against fair use, and decide on balance whether it’s ok to copy something or not. It seems to me this film presents an interesting fair use example because it definitely should be fair use, but it isn’t certainly protected by the law.Īs you may know, our fair use statute doesn’t give us a list of instances when it’s ok to copy another person’s work. However, since I work in Copyright, my first thought after watching the video was about fair use. Each frame drips with creativity, skill, and an obvious affection for the source material. Hand-drawn by Jeronimus Dekker with “a monk’s sense of concentrating and dedication”, this short film is a 6-minute summation of the first Star Wars movie, A New Hope.
That’s right, Star Wars: The Animated Movie. As a huge Star Wars fan, I was super excited when I saw this on YouTube:
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