Remix culture vs. copyright owners

Laura Blankenship — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:28:47 +0000

YouTube has challenged the tenets of copyright more than any other platform out there. As people post combinations of music, homemade video, movie and tv clips, and more, copyright holders are trying to lay claim to even the smallest bits of content. I think most people understood it was wrong to download music for free, but including it with a cat video? Parody? Fair Use? Free advertising? The Social recently reported that the beloved keyboard cat had been inserted into a Hall and Oates video, only to have its music stripped, either through the auto music fingerprinting tool used by YouTube or through a direct request from Warner Music Group. There’s been much outcry about this action from commenters on the video, many of whom think this is a dumb move for WMG and/or Hall and Oates, who are getting some free publicity and perhaps a new (younger) fan base.

I had music stripped from a video I made for a conference and I disputed it, claiming Fair Use. I won the dispute and the music was returned. It’s hard to say whether I was within my rights or not. I’m not a lawyer. I claimed that I was using the video for educational purposes, that I was not infringing on their ability to make money off the music, and I wasn’t making money off it either. On the other hand, I did use at least one entire song, and fair use guidelines do suggest using only a small percentage of a work. I thought about asking permission, but it’s a hassle and the company often asks for money.

I like the idea of asking permission, but people don’t for fear of hearing no, or of hearing yes, but you’ll need to pay us a thousand bucks. Perhaps they could make this process easier or have a smaller fee for use–like 25 cents. Or they can accept just getting credit, a full cite as one might do with academic work, with a link to the song so that someone might buy it. How much would it cost WMG to buy 375,000 impressions on Google? A lot. And yet they got it for free–or would, if they let the music stand.

As an academic, I appreciate getting and giving credit where credit is due. But individuals who are expressing themselves or making a point, using pieces of copyrighted material can’t afford the fees one might charge to a tv, film or advertising producer for the use of a song or a clip of video. We need more flexibility and we need for companies to recognize when they’re truly losing money and when they’re gaining something. I think the remix culture will win eventually, but it will be a long battle.

Social Software in Teaching and Research

Laura Blankenship — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:45:07 +0000

On Wednesday, I’ll be conducting a day-long workshop at Gettysburg College through NITLE’s wonderful programming. In preparation for the workshop, I prepared the following resources. There’s so much out there now on using different social software tools for teaching that it’s hard to keep the list short. I just threw a few things in each category. If you know of other resources I should include, let me know.

General–interesting things on Social Software in Education

Michael Wesch from Academic Commons, Learning in New Media Environments (The whole issue is worth exploring)
Clay Shirky on Tagging
Mark Prensky (classic writing on digital natives, gaming, education, etc.)

Blogs

Wiki Assignments

Social Bookmarking

List of articles/resources on using social bookmarking

Images

Social Networking

Gaming

Emerging Technologies Consulting » audio

Remix culture vs. copyright owners

Social Software in Teaching and Research