The War Game 1/5

The War Game is an Academy Award-winning documentary on nuclear warfare that was made by Peter Watkins in 1965 and was subsequently suppressed by the BBC until 1985. It remains largely unknown despite its historical importance, its high quality, and the looming gravity of its subject.

Speaking of censorship, the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107 states:

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

With regards to the first factor, this is indeed being used for non-profit educational purposes (it's a documentary on a free website). With regards to the second, in Time Inc. v. Bernard Geis Associates the court ruled that public interest is one of the factors involved in establishing fair use. As the documentary itself makes clear, it is in the public interest for there to a much better understanding by the public of nuclear war, and while this documentary is not the only way of educating the public, there is such a large gap between it and the alternatives that the facilitation condition in the third sentence of paragraph 134 of the above decision clearly applies. Moreover, in a democracy it is also clearly in the public interest to combat censorship. Peter Watkins supports the dissemination of his documentary; it was the British government, via the BBC, that suppressed it for decades and that would be making any claims of copyright infringement today. With regards to the third, it is well known that complete reproductions may be considered fair use if other factors are strong enough. With regards to the fourth, the more dissemination this gets, the more people know about the documentary, and the more people that know about it, the more are likely to buy it.

My uploading it is therefore consistent with fair use.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• nuclear
• war
• game
• peter
• watkins
• 1965
• documentary
• censorship

[LegionAvalon]

I'm not sure about suppression until 1985 - I saw this film at school around 1977-78 when I was 15-16.

[nevermore1000]

@LegionAvalon It was distributed via homemade VHS tapes (or whatever people used in the late 70's), but never aired on the BBC itself.

[RedPYEBluePYE1964]

With both "War Games" & "Threads", there is Absolutely No Doubt that the Brits are best at producing films of this type. The safest place would probably be Middle Earth aka New Zealand...

[SCE2AUX]

Two and a half to three minutes warning. And no timeouts.

[geoffck6969]

The full length, uninterrupted version of 'The War Game' is available on googlevideodotcom. 'Threads' is also available on there.

[MrLee2e]

threads brought me here , when the BBC controllers saw this they must of shit their pants - still hard hitting after all these years

[sakka0]

"It wasn't-- it wasn't free?"

"Oh no, it cost 9 pence."

haha!

[22hellman22]

@fardaypu Yea the movie the beach is a fiction movie. Not a documentry. There might be a nuclear winter but no radiation will come down south from the northern hemisphere. Its BS. Australia will be fine.

[Guynumber7]

Kind of innaccurate. If this was made in '65 it would be after the sino soviet split and the USSR wouldnt back up china

[fardaypu]

@22hellman22 fair point mate, but have you seen the film "on the beach"? we are all going together when we go. no worries cobber:)

[GayGeisha]

The stuff that nightmares are made of

[123WhiteHawk123]

It would actually make more sense to evacuate young men and women, as they would re populate the country.