Professor Patricia Aufderheide, one of American University's Scholar-Teachers, is a critic and scholar of communications policy issues in the public interest and independent media with a focus on documentary film.
Her work on fair use in documentary films has changed industry practices today. She founded the Center for Social Media in 2001, which showcases media for democracy, civil society and social justice. Professor Aufderheide was asked by Professor of Communication Stephen Prince to come speak at Virginia Tech. She will be presenting "Copyright Meets Remixers: How and why copyright law and policy are adapting to changing video culture' tonight at 7:30 p.m. in Torgersen 2150.
CT: The American University's Center of Social Media investigates and sets standards for socially engaged media making, especially the new front of video culture. Is this research that has always been significant?
PA: This is the most exciting research I've ever done. It's about the next phase of culture and how people are going to shape it. We're basically returning to an earlier era of creativity, collaboration and sharing. Until recently, copying has become plagiarism, and there's this new notion that anything that isn't new is original. These new remixes and mash-ups we're seeing are available due to digital capacity, and we are simply demonstrating vitality and collaboration. In this lecture I will explain the copyright law, fair use, and the need for people to build on existing culture to create new ones.
CT: Where does your policy work mostly lie?
PA: My policy work deals with copyrights - how people can legally copyright material without getting in trouble. I care because the future of culture is in remixes and mash-ups. If we do not have a clear understanding of this concept, our freedom of expression becomes limited.
CT: So obviously we're seeing a lot of these limitations brewing on the corporate front.
PA: Well, large media corporations are the primary opponents of the idea of fair use. Fair use is the right, in some circumstances, to quote copyrighted material without asking permission or paying for it. Fair use enables the creation of new culture and keeps current copyright holders from being private censors. These corporations, like Disney and NBC Universal, are opposed to this idea because they own most of their content, although most of it is made of mash-ups itself. For example, take Snow White as a mash-up of another form--originally collected by the Brothers Grimm and German folklore and then distributed and collaborated by Disney. The notion that Snow White should be the last time someone mashes up a story is an idea that came in with a business model based off controlling the actual copy. If someone took a South Park episode to make a mash-up, that is a legal example of fair use.
CT: I've definitely seen this concept transfer over to the music industry. Where does fair use begin and end there?
PA: If it contributes more to society than it harms the original owner, are you stepping on that person's market? Or have you put that material to new use? Look at The Rolling Stone's "Satisfaction." Whenever people see it on a website or used in a video it's probably not fair use as some would see it as stealing. But let's say you make a video of someone covering the song or (you) play it in Rock Band; it's not the original recording.
CT: So as long as it's not the original recording?
PA: That's not the issue. Today's cover of "Satisfaction" is way different than the original. If you use a section of the song and juxtapose it to a video with political references, to perhaps infer a frustrated politician it would be fair use because it's not being used for its original purpose and not affecting the original market. You see it in media every day. However, the news that you have available has not spread as widely due to the fact that corporations want to get across that point that it's their copyrighted content and that people should pay for it. These companies have convinced people that any use of their material has been stealing, and it's not true. It's perfectly fair use.
CT: Through the Internet, casual communication, personal stories and opinion, homegrown news and amateur cultural works can be made easily available to large audiences. How do you feel (about) having personal culture entering the area of public culture changes the way people communicate themselves? Is it better this way?
PA: I think it is exhilarating and a wonderful time. During the Obama campaign, everyone used social networking to include themselves with the political process. However, I think that the part where people share private information is a short-lived phenomenon. We are going to see both better ways corporations harvest people and use it. Then see people protect themselves from the corporate grip.
CT: You really believe that companies would take advantage of these people?
PA: I believe every corporate marketer is figuring out how to social-market more effectively. The nave belief of sharing personal information with the world won't last very long. It leaves people too vulnerable in the long run. Marketers are moving faster than anyone else to take advantage of social networking to create communities.
CT: Okay, so I have to bring up YouTube. It is reported in 2007 YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000. In March 2008, YouTube's bandwidth costs were estimated at approximately $1 million a day. Isn't this a nightmare for policy and copyright lawmakers? Having to adapt to this exponential growth in video sharing?
PA: That's why I'm so interested in the fair use aspect. Fair use is absolutely critical in understanding how YouTube will grow, because presently, large corporations are telling Google that they need better control over what people post. YouTube has been criticized frequently for failing to ensure that its online content adheres to the law of copyright. One of the ways that Google and other video sites are dealing with the challenge is having automated searches for copyrighted footage. It says that YouTube has taken down your work, and if it's wrong, then let them know. People's rights have become limited.
CT: We all see those YouTube videos being taken down. Organizations like Viacom are issuing lawsuits against Google under the terms of the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). Are the lines drawn down as clearly as they used to be? We can't be labeled criminals because of this.
PA: People make new material out of existing material; that's what people do. It's very evident that it's digital copying, but it doesn't make it wrong or legal. Clearly Viacom, Disney, and other copyright holders speak out because their business models are in the toilet. They can no longer base their business models by owning the original copies. They do not have the right to tell us we're criminals by reusing their material.
CT: We're not seeing these corporations loosening their grip on their own material. Do access control technologies like digital rights management (DRM) have us by the nose?
PA: DRM is dying, but the problem is that legally the DMCA criminalizes any breaking of encryption, even if you have legal reason to do it. You can't claim fair use since the DMCA overrides it. Copyright holders say it won't be a problem because they just want to watch it, not reuse; legislators thought they were doing the right thing.
CT: Regardless of legislature, do you see video culture expanding in 15 to 20 years?
PA: People are consistently storming in the DMCA asking for exceptions... Enough people claim they can't do their work and create new outlets for culture if companies are pushing to criminalize this legal behavior. I think what YouTube is showing us is that there is not going be a distinction between culture and video culture. We will see a merging of all these forms.
I don't know if we'll call it video anymore.