An important post on vids, copyright, and you (insta-rec)
Hey, fandom, hey!
thingswithwings has written a fantastic post that summarizes how and what you can do to help the OTW's current fight against DMCA rules over here. If you are not a vidder, you might not think this fight applies to you. You are wrong. As thingswithwings points out, the way the argument is being framed is...problematic, at best, not only for vidders but for fandom at large.
Zie says:
Some of the assumptions that the OTW is forced to accept from the lawmakers, and is forced to reiterate and reinscribe in its attempt to defend vidding practice against the lawmakers, include:
1) vids that retell a fairly recognizable version of the original story are not art
2) montage is not an intense and powerful method of manipulating footage
3) the elements of montage - cutting, juxtaposition, the way comparisons between shots literally move the human eye around - are not artistic tools
4) forms of footage manipulation that are invisible (such as cropping and zooming in order to refocus the shot, or recolouring a weirdly coloured scene so that it doesn't stand out) don't count as an artistic intervention in the footage
5) vids need a message to be art, and that message needs to be easily discerned and defined
6) wanting to make art out of the most beautiful footage available is not a valid reason to be able to use that footage; surely, as long as people can sort of tell that that's Spock, your star trek vid is good enough
7) wanting to project vids onto large screens at cons is not a valid reason to be able to use the footage that will look the best on a large screen
8) celebrating a source is not a kind of critical engagement with that source
9) loving something is not a noble enough goal to make the product of that love recognizable as art
10) a simple montage-style vid does not require artistic choices
And so on.
Like many people, thingswithwings quite rightly doesn't support all of the OTW's actions. But I love the way the argument is broken down here. The rest of the post is well worth reading.
This entry was originally posted at http://concinnity.dreamwidth.org/50361.html. Comment wherever you like.
thingswithwings has written a fantastic post that summarizes how and what you can do to help the OTW's current fight against DMCA rules over here. If you are not a vidder, you might not think this fight applies to you. You are wrong. As thingswithwings points out, the way the argument is being framed is...problematic, at best, not only for vidders but for fandom at large.
Zie says:
Some of the assumptions that the OTW is forced to accept from the lawmakers, and is forced to reiterate and reinscribe in its attempt to defend vidding practice against the lawmakers, include:
1) vids that retell a fairly recognizable version of the original story are not art
2) montage is not an intense and powerful method of manipulating footage
3) the elements of montage - cutting, juxtaposition, the way comparisons between shots literally move the human eye around - are not artistic tools
4) forms of footage manipulation that are invisible (such as cropping and zooming in order to refocus the shot, or recolouring a weirdly coloured scene so that it doesn't stand out) don't count as an artistic intervention in the footage
5) vids need a message to be art, and that message needs to be easily discerned and defined
6) wanting to make art out of the most beautiful footage available is not a valid reason to be able to use that footage; surely, as long as people can sort of tell that that's Spock, your star trek vid is good enough
7) wanting to project vids onto large screens at cons is not a valid reason to be able to use the footage that will look the best on a large screen
8) celebrating a source is not a kind of critical engagement with that source
9) loving something is not a noble enough goal to make the product of that love recognizable as art
10) a simple montage-style vid does not require artistic choices
And so on.
Like many people, thingswithwings quite rightly doesn't support all of the OTW's actions. But I love the way the argument is broken down here. The rest of the post is well worth reading.
This entry was originally posted at http://concinnity.dreamwidth.org/50361.html. Comment wherever you like.