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.
