Remix Culture & Fair Use: Best Practices for Online Video

Posted on July 14, 2009
Filed Under art, collective intelligence, community, creative commons, creativity, online collaboration, online video, social media, video, web evolution | View Comments

An interesting video I came across about the main issues concerning fair use, copyright, and video mashups. Highlights from my transcription below:

We’re seeing this blossoming of amateur cultures, video remixes and creativity, and a lot of these works are circulating on the Internet.

Copyright law is all about balance – giving copyright owners reasonable protection while assuring creators the ability to make new works using old culture.

Fair use protects that ability to create, and it also provides a safe guard against censorship. Not official censorhip, but private censorship by copyright.

Fair use is a right, and as the Supreme Court has recognized, it’s rooted in the First Amendment. But like any right, it’s reality depends on its exercise: we must use it, or we’re losing it.

Codes of best practices help people understand what’s fair, what’s reasonable, what’s normal in their field. That’s why they work so well for fair use: because fair use is about reasoning and logic, it’s not about just “following the rules”.

Other organizations and communities have developed codes of best practices in fair use: documentarian, media literacy teachers. And they found a tremendous difference liberating from their practices.

It’s really imperative that people have a sense of what the rules, the norms and guidelines are for how they can reuse commercial media. That’s why something like the codes of best practices for online video is so important; because it provides guidelines for everyday and amateurs creators.

The Code of Best Practices is not a blank check: you need to be sure that your use of copyrighted material is tranformative, and that the amount you use is proportional to your purpose; and you must always try to give credit to your sources.

The video contains also a short series of examples of video remixes and mashups in a “Fair Use” context.

For any feedback just let me know.

Source: Center For Social Media (School of Communication / American University)