Reclaiming fair use
March 2nd, 2008 | by Tim Wilson |I’m a huge Creative Commons advocate, and I use a CC license on pretty much everything I publish online. As much as I love the Commons, I think it’s important to remember (and teach) that we’re not without some rights when it comes to traditionally licensed works. (Here’s where I insert my note that Creative Commons licensed works are not copyright-free, they’re simply licensed under relatively permissive licenses in contrast with most commercially produced works.)
I found a couple great resources recently that I’m looking forward to sharing with people in my school district. The first from the Center for Social Media called Recut, Reframe, Recycle focuses on the use of copyrighted materials in online videos and argues that many of them could be legal. The authors include a list of 45 videos in nine fair use-protected categories. Believe it or not, there are shades of grey here. We shouldn’t automatically reject student work that utilizes copyrighted works.
The second piece is a video I found at the Stanford Law School by Bucknell University Professor Eric Faden entitled A Fair(y) Use Tale. Professor Faden thumbs his nose at The Mouse brilliantly by remixing clips from Disney movies to teach about copyright and fair use.
I’m adding these resources to my copyright and fair use arsenal. I hope someone else will find them useful too.
Tags: copyright, creative commons, disney, eric faden, fair use
2 Responses to “Reclaiming fair use”
By Jethro taylor on Mar 5, 2008 | Reply
I totally agree. I get frustrated watching teachers in my District paying tons of money for “educational licensed” materials that they could legally use for free (or the cost of copy paper or blank DVDs). As the Media Technician for our District, I’ve been able to institute a CC licensing scheme for any materials we produce, and fortunately, I have the opportunity to do a lot of workshops for our teachers where I try to hammer home the concepts of “Fair Dealing” (as it’s called here in Canada) and Creative Commons. I have even started a website where I am uploading all my personal media (photos and video) to as Creative Commons-licensed materials for people to use/reuse/remix/etc. (www.freetard.com)