Patricia Aufderheide's Posts

It was a real joy in the last weekend of April to be part of Media in Transition 5, the party that the cultural studies folks at MIT throw for their friends.(Sample the guest list and other goodies at http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/mit5/.) In the best spirit of Henry Jenkins' Convergence Culture (the title of his latest book), the event was participatory and multimedia. Craig Watkins from University of Texas at Austin talked about hip hop culture, and Mimi Ito from University of Southern California stuck up for Pokemon culture. Read more...

Suppose you’re running an online video platform, and people start uploading video that uses other people’s work. How should unauthorized use of other people’s work be treated in this new environment?
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Do you wonder what's really fair when you're making a mashup or a remix? So does everybody else. The rules are still being written for remix culture, and you could help write them. Take a look at the Center's new video, made by our own Dan Jones, at http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/videos/remix_culture/. It's a great compilation of some of the Youtube "classics" from the last couple of years. Which of these uses of other people's work do you think is fair? Read more...

Worry, worry, worry. That's what happens, it seems, when college students upload video to online platforms. They care about copyright, and would like to own their own work and respect that of others. They just don't understand their own First Amendment rights or know how to comply with copyright law. That's what the Center's new study, "The Good, the Bad and the Confusing," shows. And in this case, confusion directly affects creativity, because people sometimes make creative decisions based on misinformation. Read it and let us know--does this strike a chord?Read more...

Chubb has now joined the group of insurers that recognize Fair Use claims for documentary filmmakers. These insurers are depending on the Documentary Filmmakers' Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use to make their judgments (they want a lawyer to verify the filmmaker's decision that the use is within the Statement's principles). This is a big step forward, since for years before the Statement was issued, documentary filmmakers had not been able to get insurance for these Fair Uses.