Patricia Aufderheide's Posts

When college kids make mashups of Hollywood movies, are they violating the law? Not necessarily, according to the latest study on copyright and creativity from the Center and American University’s Washington College of Law.
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Longtime public interest advocate Jeffrey Chester, of the Center for Digital Democracy, has written a provocative op-ed in The Nation about Google as the dubious guardian of the public interest in communication. He points to Google's rapid acquisition of other media and communications companies, and its core strategy of developing data-mining into an art that serves advertisers. Read more...

Can commercial platforms serve public purposes? Can they help non-commercial media raise money? Here's an experiment to keep your eye on. YouTube is trying to attract nonprofits, offering them the chance to create channels free of charge and collect donations with Google Checkout without service fees. Non-profits can upload public service announcements, footage of their work, and calls to action on the YouTube Nonprofit Program. The video sharing website also plans on creating a location on its site where users can browse all the non-profit channels. Read more...

Today, many independent producers of social-issue film--makers of public media--survive on high-priced sales to educational institutions. They believe that the market for direct sales to consumers--which could vastly increase circulation of public media--has not yet evolved enough to risk giving away this valuable market. Meanwhile, libraries chafe under that two-tiered pricing model. The digital download era seems to offer new business models within the educational space, which could expand the market and nurture more public media makers. But transitions hurt. Read more...