Ask HN: Is my startup legal? MovieByHeart.com
I’ve searched everywhere for a solution to this problem and found nothing. That is why I’ve created MovieByHeart.com. This website will help people overcome the fear of speaking in English.
At MovieByHeart we transform movie into educational games, following the Fair Use copyright guidelines. However, I think that The Gatekeepers will consider it as copyright infringement.
I want to make this project legal, I’d love to pay license fees, but at this stage no one knows what to do, because we are in uncharted territory. Such companies as Amazon, iTunes, YouTube are not able to license movies they want. And I’m just a teacher, who can’t afford a lawyer. What should I do?
Your opinion and advise will be greatly appreciated. If you would like to test website, use email: moviebyheart at gmail, password: test1234
19 comments
[ 276 ms ] story [ 171 ms ] threadMany of the subtitle sites have been taken down by the MPAA. I love the idea of your site, but I think if it gets big enough, they will eventually take you to court.
Around ycnews it is often said to not worry about that. No one will sue you until you get big, and then you can negotiate. I have no opinion on that advice.
Studios are unlikely to license you big name movies and TV shows.
Can you contact independent filmmakers instead? They may be giving their work away for free already. You could create a market for it. Your customers pay to use your service, and then you give a cut to the filmmaker. Filmmaker makes money where he wouldn't have before, and also gets greater exposure for his work.
"since the defendant has engaged in both types of transformation, we would expect a court generally to find that the defendant’s use is transformative and that the transformativeness factor weighs in favor of the defendant’s fair use claim (though how strongly it does so may vary depending on how transformative the defendant’s use is)" http://www.utexas.edu/law/faculty/treese/fair_use_transforma...
1. Transformation is more than adding your own translation on top of the movie. You need to change the meaning or expression of the work. The meaning of your version is exactly the same as the original by definition (you are making a word for word translation).
2. Your "educational purpose" argument is diminished when you affect the market for the work. The movie studio will argue your students should rent/buy the movie and watch with subtitles. Your website is taking away sales. Also, if you try to earn money from this you are no longer seeking any educational purpose.
3. You are broadcasting the original movie without permission. That is copyright infringement.
4. Regarding your quote, you should read the Blanch v. Koons case and look at Blanch's original work versus Koon's alleged infringing work to see what transformation requires.
The only thing students can do with DVD is to watch it (passive entertainment).
In our case students learn dialog lines and than perform them with the help of Voice Over videos (active learning).
I think that we create a new market for people with a specific need. When people pay for access to Voice Over videos they will pay because they want to overcome Anxiety, not because they want to see movie for entertainment.
Thats how I see it. May be I wrong
This might work: Stop broadcasting the video. You make an audio only CD where you and friends play the parts in the movies. The customer is instructed on when to start the audio CD so that it syncs with the movie. You can also distribute a book that tells the person when to start and stop the movie/audio and then do your thing with your company.
So all you are selling is an audio CD, which you performed, and a companion workbook.
This MAY work because what you are doing is making a "cover song" of the movie audio. You will need a mechanical license, if it is even available. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_license
I have never heard of this for movies, but it might work. A mechanical license will be cheaper and easier than negotiating with a movie studio.
This is how it works in the music world: http://www.harryfox.com/public/FAQ.jsp
No idea if you can do this in the movie world, but you should check it out.
That is slightly different than OP because OP wants to broadcast the movie, or at least the exact words. The exact words are what he needs to license, even if he does perform them himself.
If OP can figure out a way to teach people language by making his own rifftrax mp3 then he is in business. Good call prodigal_erik.
The reason why is at the very heart of copyright law. You need to learn this area.
Owning copyright to a work gives the owner EXCLUSIVE rights to distribution of that work.
Therefore, just because you sold a legal copy to a user via Amazon you do not have the right to broadcast the work on your website. Only the copyright owner can do that, because he has exclusive distribution rights. Your broadcast isn't authorized even though you selling DVDs is authorized.
Be careful with this stuff. In my opinion you are playing with fire here. The RIAA has no problems with burying people who distribute songs illegally. MPAA has done less of this, but you don't want to be the example.