We've been conditioned to think that if you pull something off the web and use it, you're committing some sort of copyright infringement. But increasingly, the law is moving in exactly the opposite direction. Provided you are making a truly new use of the content, such as the totally NSFW Bill-O Dance Remix, you are in fact free to make money off your appropriation of copyrighted images and video and sound.
That's the bold statement of a new document, released today by the Center for Social Media at American University, that reflects some of the amazing changes in fair use law that have been going on under our noses the past couple of years.
TV Barn Podcast - 7/7/2008 - Fair Use (13:00)
The document, Code of Best Practices for Fair Use in Online Video, is a mouthful, but at its core are six pretty simple principles that can be summarized even more simply: Make sure you are making a new thing out of the old things, and then as a creative you have rights you may not even be aware of.
Patricia Aufderheide, director of the Center, told me the document was assembled by a "cutting-edge" team of intellectual property lawyers and creatives who have actually done this stuff, not just digitally but for years in the analog world.
On the website where the document was posted is a boatload of supporting material, including a great document, Recut, Reframe, Recycle, that turns the tables on the cease-and-desisters:
Online videos frequently quote copyrighted material without permission, in ways that could be entirely legal through fair use. But these works are threatened by anti-piracy measures that do not distinguish adequately between legal and illegal uses.
Check it all out, even if your mashup masterpiece is in the future, it's worth learning about this explosive potential area in DIY media that could be the Internet's next big growth market. Who knows, maybe the next Dramatic Chipmunk (or hamster) will make its creator some money. By the way, if you'd like to buy the Bill-O dance remix, it's 69 cents well spent:
Aaron, you should mention that the Bill-O Dance Remix is totally NSFW. Fortunately, I'm telecommuting today, and was able to crank it.
(Done! It was in there at one point, but got zapped in a rewrite.--AB)
Posted by: Reality Check | July 08, 2008 at 10:29 AM