Copyright and Fair Use

A. How much should users of the web think about copyright as you and others share, re-share, and remix content on the web?

After watching both Larry Lessig’s and Andy Baio’s videos, I now think web users should definitely think about copyright before sharing, re-sharing and remixing content on the web.  Neglecting copyright laws and asking the original artist permission to use their content and paying the appropriate fees to use the content could find those sharing original content being sued or settling out of court and paying huge amounts of money.

B. What is fair use?

Fair use, in lamens terms is the ability to use copyrighted material for the narrow purposes of parodying, commenting or remixing without needing the copyright owner’s permission.

Though, remixing original content falls under fair use, it is still wise to think before acting to prevent copyright infringement and being sued.

The quote that I found compelling by Larry Lessig is “UGC (user generated content), spreading in businesses in extraordinarily valuable ways like these (i.e. YouTube , flickr, Revver, etc.), celebrating amateur culture by which I don’t mean amateurish culture, I mean culture where people produce for the love of what they’re doing and not for the money”.

I liked this quote because technology makes remixing and transforming original content into something up to date and new, whether remixing dance music for the love of it for a party, whether using a movie or tv image you love to print on a t-shirt, or remixing a tv or movie clip with different music behind it for fun.  We see this all the time.  And most times these content creators aren’t sued, but it makes you wonder, have they created a space where they can be sued?  It’s a lot to think about after watching Larry Lessig’s and Andy Baio’s videos. 😮