Great piece Jacob. Thanks for making it and spreading the word. I saw the whole Eyes on the Prize series when I was in high school and it really moved me--it may even be one of my first meaningful encounters with the documentary form. I loved those films and remember being sprawled out on the classroom floor, riveted to the screen, thinking "I want to do something with my life that changes this world for the better." It was so inspiring and the thought of it not being available in the future was sooo disturbing. Now that I've read the comments, I am relieved. But still we must fight for the fair use right!

If a particular group believes these films are worth keeping in the public eye, funds should be solicited to purchase the copyright - then the new owners can do anything they please. These films are private property - to force someone to give up the rights to their property would be theft, plain and simple.

WGBH, the PBS station in Boston that produces "American Experience" & is broadcasting "Eyes on the Prize", says on its sales site that no DVDs are available for home use purchase. So it appears that it's not just that institutional pricing is an obstacle.

Under the circumstances, I think that recording the broadcasts for home use and study constitutes fair use, if not legally (it might or might not) at least morally. Since we can't buy it anyway, not buying it isn't depriving Blackside of anything, and the underlying copyright holders have got paid twice now & probably have got a premium second time around because inclusion in the series made their material more valuable. The people have a right to our history; in this context, Proudhon was right: property is theft.

Educators should buy the set institutionally, or request that it be bought, where feasible, which will support Blackside's new creation out of the bits of older creations.

Can you get movies back if the money is raised?

I think that we should use our rights for Fair Use because we should not let black history fade to black. All the good speeches and black history information are being banned from us so we can't be taught or shown how we had good African American leaders help us to become free from slavery. With Fair Use we should be able to look at the past leaders as we wish and not have it banned from us so we are not able to purchase them.

I only wish the DVDs were more affordable. It is great that libraries and schools will have them now but that price is a bit high for the general public. Still, the fact that it is coming on PBS soon is a huge win!

Eyes on the Prize returns to PBS this Fall and DVDs of the collection are now available!

It's obviously great that the Ford Foundation got involved in clearing the rights so that "Eyes on the Prize" might go back into distribution, but in a way this is a step back if we (the filmmaking community) are trying to reclaim our Fair Use rights. It seems like the film would be the perfect one to take to the courts, but I guess it all depends on the attitudes and resources of the filmmakers and distributors.

Thanks for the post Matt.

Luckily the Ford Foundation donated $600,000 and a man named Richard Gilder put up $250,000 on his own because he felt this was so important.

I'm curious as to what hurdles they need to jump in order to distribute it on DVD, as it doesn't mention that in the article. NPR said they have plans to restore it to educational distrbution by the summer, but that'll likely be too expensive for the average consumer.

Anyhow, it's remarkable news, and will be even more priceless now that some of the interviewees (Stokely Carmichael, George Wallace) have passed away.

We'll have to stay in the loop to see what happens, and hope that people understand that this relic of history is only being restored because people acted out to ensure that it be brought to its proper place.

Update on "Eyes on the Fair Use Prize": Rights to "Eyes on the Prize" have been renegotiated and it will air again this fall.

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