 For filmmakers and especially documentary filmmakers, fair use is an essential tool. Filmmakers are copyright makers. They copyright holders. They are deeply respectful of copyright. But documentary filmmakers in particular face the fact that the world around them that they are capturing in their work is filled with copyrighted objects. And to even think about clearing everything in that world would be prohibitive in many ways. It would be prohibitive from a time perspective, from an economic perspective. And the result of believing that you would have to clear, get permission for, pay for everything that's copyrighted in your world, including the posters on the walls behind somebody you're interviewing and everything, would make it impossible to make those films at all. Which actually used to happen before we created with filmmaker organizations, a code of best practices in documentary in fair use for documentary filmmaking. Filmmakers literally told us, well, I as a professional always choose not to make films that would involve copyrighted music, not to make films that would deal with movies, not to make films that deal with current events, because I would want to have to quote TV and and those anchors are expensive. And I try not to make things that are funny, because are satirical, because I would be making fun of something that that the copyright holder might object to. So I'm just on all those fronts and basically everything about modern day and popular culture. That's unless I can get HBO to sign off on a half a million dollar clearance budget, I'm not going to make that movie. And really all that changed when they discovered that fair use is a right that is not disrespectful to the current could to the copyright holder, whose work you are using for free. The reason it's not disrespectful is you're not taking money out of their pocket for the use for which this thing is intended. That's what you're that's what you're doing you should pay for it. If somebody has a really great sunset that they filmed in their movie and you're like I need a sunset that one's good. You should probably pay for that, because it's the same use. But if what you're doing is taking material that appeared in a newspaper on the cover of a magazine in a TV show to tell a different story, and you use it in the appropriate amount, which might be 100% probably isn't. It might, it might be that your use is covered by putting it in black and white, you don't need it might be that you need it small. And there's lots of ways in which your need could be met appropriately by limiting the use. Sometimes your need would only be met if you used all of it. But that's up to you as a filmmaker, and that's the logic that you're going to use as a filmmaker. What's my different need that wouldn't involve stepping into the market for the original good. How much of it do I need to say that important new thing that I'm trying to say, or frankly unimportant new thing that I'm trying to say. And, and, again, am I, am I replicating the purpose. So, if you think like that you're thinking like today's judges, and the, the code of this practices that filmmakers evolved through a year long discussion that was national in 2005 was so effective. Insurance companies changed their policies within a year to decide to accept fair use claims because they finally understood what the actual risk was, which in some of these core cases is basically infinitesimal. In when you're using a right, you can never say there's absolutely no possible possibility that I will never get in trouble for doing this, because you can't guarantee other people's actions. What I can say is, were somebody to come after me for a use like this. A judge would say, I don't think so. And that is exactly what has happened in the very few cases on to that I know of, since 2005, where somebody for their own reasons has said, use that material, I don't think it's fair use. And the judges have actually dismissed those cases and oral arguments without letting them proceed because they did not have any merit. So, I think we can say that filmmakers now feel very confident because not only are they confident in what their, what their rights are. So our broadcasters so our cablecasters so our lawyers, so our insurance companies and really insurance companies for errors and omissions insurance are providing the comfort to everyone else, because what they're saying is we're pretty confident that you're not going to get in trouble and we're so confident we'll ensure you for it. And typically they don't charge extra for that. So we have a lot of market based information practice that fair use is very robust in the documentary film community, and indeed it's been used to make lots of interesting work. One of my favorites actually involves a film that involved clips from I believe 34 different major motion pictures. The film was not yet rated. It's an older film now. And I think it was made in 2007 2008. But it's a film about the rating system and how unfair it is to independent films. And so there's all these contrast between here's an independent film that has this scene that got this rating. Here's a major motion picture that has the same kind of scene and it got a better rating. In order to do that you have to actually show the scenes right. They did. And the filmmaker Kirby Dick. This was very much at the beginning of using fair use he was like, I'm just going to wait to get those cease and desist letters and I'm going to put every one of them on the DVD. That was in the days when we had DVDs. He never got a cease and desist letter from anyone and he had films from six major motion picture studios. So we've got a lot of evidence from people and the exciting thing about this, especially in contrast to almost two decades ago, is that people don't need to be courageous to use their fair use rights in the film community. They can just be doing something ordinary. I was talking to a young filmmaker who made a very interesting film on that involved a sequence she was a film about a murder of a 13 year old by another 13 year old. And she there's a whole sequence that involved newspaper headlines and clips from clips from TV and magazine had magazine covers and so on. And I said to her. Can I ask you about that sequence. This was a few years ago. Can I ask you about that sequence. Did you did you clear that she said, oh no we use fair use. And I was like, I love hearing that like of course we used fair use. What are you talking about. Because that wouldn't have been true 15 years before. So it's been really, really exciting to see that change. And it's exciting every time I see a film where something was able to be said, something was able to be made because of a reasonable, expectable and respectful employment of fair use.