Video remixers are on the front lines of the battle between new media
technologies and impeding copyright laws that threaten to obstruct the
public space for popular culture critique. Public spaces such as YouTube
are teeming with meticulously crafted and articulate video remixes that
make powerful arguments, deconstructing social myths and challenging
dominant media messages. These remixes reflect the participatory nature
of both pop and remix cultures, but their future is in jeopardy due to
corporate claims of copyright infringement, DMCA takedown notices and an
inability to distinguish between an illegal use of proprietary content
and a fair use of one.
Losing these videos looks like this:
In the spring of 2009 I curated a video show called “REMOVED: The
Politics of Remix Culture”. With the permission of the artists,
outlawed YouTube video remixes screened alongside the artist’s
email exchanges with YouTube’s legal team. Every remix in the show
was removed due to copyright infringement or terms of use violation and
each exchange between YouTube and artists illustrated an important power
dynamic: “Your video is no longer available because FOX has chosen
to block it.”
Due to their transformative nature, remix videos are highly eligible to
make a fair use of copyrighted material, but as the artists in the
REMOVED show realized, citing Fair Use does not always warrant proper
treatment from video sharing sites. Remixers need to be aware that
Fair Use is a case by case judgment call, which you can help make
yourself based on the
Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video. If you’re
feeling confident your work is legal but you’ve received a notice
that it’s not, check out Chilling Effects.
It is important to remix pop-culture, mash-up the media landscape and
blur the line between passive audience and active creator. Part of the
fun is that it exposes archaic copyright limitations.
I’m proud to be on the front lines of the battle between new media
technologies and impeding copyright laws. Video remixing wouldn’t
be possible without organizations like Public Knowledge who
acknowledge that Fair Use is a right, not a privilege. As a remixer, I
can only continue
making new remixes with the hopes that the product and process decreases
copyright confusion and encourages the use of new media technologies to
sustain media literacy and critical thinking about popular culture.