Science Discovery Institute: Ripping Off Harvard’s Computer Animation?
posted by on November 26 at 13:22 PM
Over at Horse’s Ass, Goldy directs our attention to a blog complaint about a video used in Discovery Institute presentations to dazzle audiences into thinking natural selection couldn’t have produced complex cell processes. Turns out the video is the short version of “The Inner Life of a Cell,” an animated film originally produced by Harvard University and partner animation company XVIVO. (Watch an ABC News report about the project.) The Discovery Institute opted out of the long version, with its science-heavy narration. Instead, it added its own voiceover interpretation of events—listen for loaded words like “motors.”
So is it wanton copyright infringement or fair use (XVIVO posted the video online “for educational use”)? Take a look:
The very pretty original, credits intact:
Discovery Institute’s version:
sue their asses!
Clearly both products were the result of the same Intelligent Designer, thus disproving evolution.
Actually, Harvard and other major institutes need to sue them.
It's fair use. The narration accurately said what the parts were, and they never said, and here's when god created the motor. I think it's fair use. Just b/c they come to a different conclusion doesn't mean they're violating any copyrights. Are they making lots of money off it? Was that a free seminar?
Wow. The long version + narration was pretty impressive. And yet it only covered one tiny event in a human body. No wonder the discovery institute guys used it -- they have so little imagination about what potential their god might have.
Know what would have made it even cooler? A miniaturized Raquel Welch, wearing a skin-tight wetsuit and being attacked by antibodies.
Annie, posting it for educational use means using it without changing anything.
As in not writing your own script to replace the one that's already there. As in not stripping off the copyright notice.
@7: Just to clarify: They didn't replace the script; there's no script in the short version. They did strip off the credits (there's no copyright notice per se) and add a supertitle. I'm no lawyer, but I agree, it seems dubious.
@7 - as opposed to the obvious satire and parody that Intelligent Design is.
ID is just God's way of saying She thinks Neocons are fools and dullards.
isn't parody allowed?
That was my point.
The sad thing is they're so deluded at the DI they don't think it's a parody.
@8 - In the last seconds I read at the bottom of the last shot of the original:
(c)2006 The President and Fellows of Harvard College
Isn't that a copyright notice?
@12: You're right; I must have stopped watching too soon. That's the one Dembski claims to have retained (see my post above) but I don't see it in the presentation version, do you?
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