Hollywood and the University
A Love/Hate Relationship
Hollywood’s relationship with universities has always been fraught. On one hand, film scholarship and education has generated interest in bodies of films that would otherwise have been forgotten or that might never have found an audience. On occasion, Hollywood filmmakers have been flattered by academic attention and studios have developed productive relationships with universities.
But, on the other hand, throughout the long history of this relationship, Hollywood studios have remained dubious about educational exceptions that allow for free use by scholars, educators, and students – often leading the Motion Picture Association of America to accuse universities of being hotbeds of piracy.
I will look at several instances from the 1910s to today in which copyright law has brought Hollywood and U.S. universities together, either as partners or as adversaries. Examples stretch from a 1911 U.S. Supreme Court decision that started the first collaboration between Hollywood and an American university to recent disputes over filesharing and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Peter Decherney teaches film at the University of Pennsylvania. His research and teaching focus on the history of media regulation and on internet policy, specifically the interaction between Hollywood and Washington. He is the author of »Hollywood and the Culture Elite: ›How the Movies Became American‹ « (Columbia UP, 2005) and many articles on the Hollywood film industry, on the history of media regulation, and on fair use and academia, among other topics. He is currently working on a new book on the history and future of Hollywood and copyright law.
FR 16.1. | 14:30 im Kino 46
