My column in today’s Alligator is about Downhill Battle’s Eyes on the Screen project. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to organize a showing here at UF, but there’s a good possibility we might be able to do one in the future.

Briefly, Eyes on the Prize is one of the most revered documentary series about the civil rights movement, but it’s locked in copyright licensing disputes, and can’t be re-released, publicly aired or screened. The original VHS copies of the film are wearing out and disappearing. Downhill Battle (with whom FreeCulture.org has worked in the past) encouraged anyone with access to the films to show them in “community” screenings on Feb. 8 to raise awareness of the problem. According to their Web site, over 100 such screenings took place worldwide.

For more information about the film, or why its licensing battle is so problematic, see my column or the site at Downhill Battle.

For the record, the clause of the Constituion which authorized Congress to create copyright (Section 8 of Article I) actually reads: “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts…” My editor changed the quote for some strange reason.