Our culture relies on sharing and spreading ideas. Technologically and creatively, the ability to access, publish, and contribute has never been easier. Remix culture, free speech, and video are essential components of modern communication. Whether cutting from political speeches, mashing up pop culture, or exploring new and original work, we are at a crossroads of art, storytelling, and participation. The possibility of creativity through digital video is as vast as the number of people producing it, but faces legal and technical restrictions that aren’t as common for other forms of speech.  The threat of piracy in online video has contributed to legal maneuvers that lock down content and restrict use of the raw materials of culture. Not only does the erosion of creative license alienate fans and diminish access, but it further sustains reliance on a past-oriented copyright dependent business model on behalf of incumbent interests. This serves to limit new ideas and the present day rights of cultural producers.

The Eclectic Method/ Image by ccLearn

Video on the web can’t simply be “internet TV” or a glorified on-demand system. For its potential to be fully realized, online video must be a dynamic medium that invites clipping, archival, remix, collage, repurposing, and other transformations. As a medium, online video will be most powerful when it is fluid, like a conversation. Like the rest of the internet, online video must be designed to encourage participation, not just passive consumption.

Video is a dominant form popular culture, and video mash-up is part of the long history of exploring and building upon the work of others. It is important that rights in this medium are clearly defined, supported, and maintained for the future of artistic and intellectual creation.

More info:
Organization for Transformative Works
Illegal Art exhibit
ThruYou: Kutiman remixes YouTube
Eclectic Method
Total Recut

Fair Use

Our shared popular culture is driven by Hollywood movies, television shows, video games and the latest musical hits. Due to its ubiquitous nature, it is entrenched in our everyday lives, becoming part of the language we speak to each other and also shaping how we see the world around us. Pop culture is largely created, distributed and owned by a few major media corporations, and copyright laws restrict its public use. Given tight control by these powerful interest groups, how can remixers, artists, educators, and filmmakers find ways to speak using our shared pop cultural language? How does fair use intersect with copyright regarding our artistic rights to create, criticize and build on the past?

Stanford‘s Anthony Falzone at OVC09/ Image by lucbyhet

The Center For Social Media’s Code of Best Practices for Fair Use in Online Video stands up for fair use in this new environment:

“Video is increasingly becoming a central part of our everyday landscape of communication, and it is becoming more visible as people share it on digital platforms. More and more, video creation and sharing depend on the ability to use and circulate existing copyrighted work. It is important for video makers, online service providers, and content providers to understand the legal rights of makers of new culture, as policies and practices evolve. Only then will efforts to fight copyright ‘piracy’ in the online environment be able to make necessary space for lawful, value-added uses. Mashups, remixes, subs, and online parodies are new and refreshing online phenomena, but they partake of an ancient tradition: the recycling of old culture to make new. The bargain is this: we as a society give limited property rights to creators, to reward them for producing culture; at the same time, we give other creators the chance to use that same copyrighted material without permission or payment, in some circumstances.

Copyright law has several features that permit quotations from copyrighted works without permission or payment, under certain conditions. Fair use is the most important of these features. Fair use is flexible; it is not uncertain or unreliable. In reviewing the history of fair use litigation, we find that judges return again and again to two key questions:

• Did the unlicensed use “transform” the material taken from the copyrighted work by using it for a different purpose than that of the original, or did it just repeat the work for the same intent and value as the original?
• Was the material taken appropriate in kind and amount, considering the nature of the copyrighted work and of the use?

Video makers can take heart from other creator groups’ reliance on fair use. For instance, historians regularly quote both other historians’ writings and textual sources; filmmakers and visual artists reinterpret and critique existing work; scholars illustrate cultural commentary with textual, visual, and musical examples. Images and sounds can be building blocks for new meaning, just as quotations of written texts can be. Emerging cultural expression deserves recognition for transformative value as much as more established expression.”

More info:
American University Center for Social Media on Fair Use
Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video
Stanford CIS Fair Use Project

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