Michael Donaldson, Lisa Callif and Chris Perez discuss the latest edition of “CLEARANCE & COPYRIGHT” with Filmmaker Magazine

The three partners and co-authors sat down with reporter Scott Macaulay to discuss the newest edition of Clearance & Copyright for an article in Filmmaker Magazine.

First published in 1996 by Michael Donaldson, Clearance & Copyright: Everything You Need to Know for Film, Television and Other Creative Content has since been updated four times. The latest version (the book’s fifth edition) was just released in February 2023.

As noted by Chris Perez in the interview with Filmmaker, “it’s amazing to see where distributors and studios are on fair use compared to when the first version came out—it’s so much more accepted. We owe a lot of that to Michael because the book has been sitting on the bookshelves of a lot of attorneys and studios.”

The fifth edition of Clearance & Copyright incorporates new case law, a wider range of legal issues relevant to filmmakers today, and expanded supplementary features (including links to media referenced throughout the book and updated downloadable forms and contracts).

In his article, Macaulay opines that “what makes Clearance and Copyright a great read and not just a utilitarian one are its copious examples and anecdotes, many of which are drawn from the firm’s own case files.” He concludes that the newly released fifth edition is “worth more than its $45 cover price.”

Click HERE to buy the Clearance & Copyright, 5th edition now!

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