Change is in the air

I know that it has seemed like the government is out to get us, that there is no way for anyone to legally remix a video or song, but according to this new information and with the help of the Center for Social Media, we can see that the law is actually working to help people create remixes in a legal way. The Center for Social Media has put out a document that defines just what is in the area of fair use and how you can use it to create new remixes. This document is called the Code of Best Practices for Fair Use in Online Video, (kind of a lengthy title). This document emphasizes on the fact copyright laws have changed recently to be more lenient toward remixers and is now including a “transformative effect”, which enables anyone to create a remix and distribute their work as long as their remix successfully transforms another’s work so that it can be disputed to be something “new” and is not a substitute for the sample they are remixing from. In the past, the Center has also released such tools such as the Guidelines for Documentary Filmmakers. The name of the guidelines suggest its purpose. Now this is not to say that the battle is won in the name of mashers and remixers, but rule-books such as these definitively help those who wish to transform someone else’s work and make it their own. To me this seems like a really good thing. The government is showing a little understanding towards the growing popularity of mash-ups and remixes and compromising with the artists. Or maybe they are just trying to satisfy people by throwing them a little bit of leeway. And it is still possible that the Center has just found a bunch of loopholes and are not falling for some of the music industry’s scare tactics. Either way, I still feel like these guides are great for anyone trying to be a successful and legal mush-up or remix artist.

 

- Also go to the tagged sites I’ve posted. One contains a podcast about this matter, and the another, an informative video on the Code of Best Practices for Fair Use in Online Video. I couldn’t figure out how to upload them onto the site successfully.