Good Copy, Bad Copy Documentary

Tomorrow at NYU, there will be a screening of the 2007 documentary Good Copy, Bad Copy, coupled with what promises to be an insightful question and answer period afterwards. Here’s the announcement:

In cooperation with Digital Freedom, NYU ACM, Free Culture @ NYU will be hosting the first American screening of the 2007 film Good Copy Bad Copy. The documentary highlights the current state of copyright and culture, and features prominent copyright players such as Girl Talk, Lawrence Lessig, Renaldo Lemos, and Dan Glickman.

We’re especially excited to announce that immediately following the screening, we’ll be hosting a question and answer session with the film’s award-winning Danish co-director, Henrik Moltke and Fritz Attaway, the MPAA’s Executive VP and Special Policy Advisor. If you’re at all interested in these issues, or want to meet a director working in free culture, or even just want to meet someone from the MPAA, you should absolutely come! The film is a wonderful introduction to the topics that Free Culture @ NYU deals in and this screening will be a fantastic opportunity to learn more about what we’re working towards.

Good Copy Bad Copy Screening
Followed by Q&A with Co-Director Henrik Moltke and Fritz Attaway, MPAA
Tuesday, October 16th 2007
9:15pm - 11:15pm
NYU’s Courant Institute
251 Mercer Street b/w Bleecker and W. 4th
Room #109
Free and Open to the Public (bring ID if non-NYU)


The documentary is a 58 minute (boy does it needs editing!) Danish documentary, directed by Andreas Johnsen, Ralf Christensen, and Henrik Moltke. It features interviews with Danger Mouse, Girl Talk (born Gregg Gillis), Siva Vaidhyanathan, Larry Lessig, and others. In keeping with the spirit of the film, it can be downloaded for free (or contribution) at www.goodcopybadcopy.net. The film looks at attitudes in Nigeria, Sweden, Brazil, the UK, and the US. about sampling and copyright in general. For those of us like me who regard the Bridgeport – Dimension 6th Circuit opinion (rejecting even de minimis uses of sound recordings as non-actionable) as the worst and most evil copyright decision in the history of the world, you will get to meet the folks at Bridgeport. Conversely, Danger Mouse, of the Grey Album fame, is utterly charming. Then there is serial copyright court expert Lawrence Ferrara, who while genuinely trying to help explain the (anyway simple) musical issues in the Bridegeport case, seems all too eager to impress us that despite his almost Madame Tussaud dressed for success look, he is down with George Clinton’s immortal “Get Off Your Ass and Jam,” the subject of that case.

Since you can see the movie for free on your computer (as I did), why stay up for a screening that starts at 9:15 pm (in the city that never sleeps)? The answer is the Q&A with the film’s Co-Director Henrik Moltke and Fritz Attaway of the MPAA. I do not knw Mr. Molte, and assume he will provide interesting tidbits about the making of the film. For those on the copyleft side of issues, I strongly urge that you go just to listen to Fritz, whom I have know for over 20 years, and whom I admire deeply. Fritz’s knowledge of copyright and communications law is breathtaking. He is also an extremely straightforward, reasonable, honest, calm, and articulate person whom I think will wow everyone. It is so common in the copyright wars to demonize the other side, a mistake for many reasons. It is courageous for Fritz to appear at the screening, in the belly of the beast, and after a movie which is sure to rile the faithful up to a fever pitch. He is well worth staying up for. I think people will learn a great deal from him; I always have.