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Copyright & Fair Use Blog
The Center for Social Media and the Washington College of Law at American University worked with veteran documentary filmmakers to create the Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use in November 2005. Through their filmmaker professional associations, these practitioners drafted a clear and easy-to-understand statement of reasonable approaches to fair use. For more resources, click on Copyright & Fair Use.
Discuss your views on copyright and fair use for media that matters!
Posts
New Organizing Institute’s New Media Training
Posted by Micael Bogar on Jul 2, 2009
Last week I attended a two-day New Media Training conference with the New Organizing Institute (NOI). The Institute aims: * To train and support a new generation of technology-enabled campaigners. * To consolidate and disseminate knowledge gained in the field of political technology and online organizing. * To conduct new research and post-campaign investigations that employ results-focused, systems thinking to make progressive campaigns and organizations more efficient. The training was focused very much on political campaigns but the discussions still proved very helpful for any advocacy organization/think tank interested in upgrading their promotional and outreach capabilities, as well as media… more
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Blogging from the PDF 2009: Twitter as a promising tool to increase social action
Posted by Nina Keim on Jul 1, 2009
At this year’s Personal Democracy Forum more than 1,000 opinion makers, political practitioners, technologists and journalists gathered together for the sixth time to discuss how technology is changing politics. Having witnessed how Barack Obama found innovative ways to leverage modern media tools to advance the campaign, the PDF is now focused on identifying how much the Internet and technology tools are changing the environment. Two panels I attended specifically looked at how the micro-blogging portal Twitter allows a wide public to actively engage in campaigns and advocacy work. Crowd-sourced projects, Twitter-based community organizing and fundraising are three promising methods to… more
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Fair Use Question of the Month: Free Legal Advice for Fair Use
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Jun 30, 2009
QUESTION: Dear Center for Social Media, We are looking for an expert in fair use that can watch our documentary and let us know if we can use some of the news archival and other historical footage that we have included. As you well know, financial resources are always tight when making a film; therefore, I will truly appreciate if you know of anyone that can donate these services to us. All the best, Daniel ANSWER: Dear Daniel, We were co-facilitators of the various Codes of Best Practices in Fair Use that are on our website, and we strongly encourage… more
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Lioness making an impact on legislation
Posted by Barbara Abrash on Jun 26, 2009
Lioness shows how a documentary positioned at the centerpiece of a strategic outreach campaign can put an issue on the public agenda and have a direct impact on public policy. The National Defense Authorization Act for the Fiscal Year 2010 was approved by the House Armed Services Committee this week. Included in its recommendations is a section titled . “Recognizing Service Women Who Have Participated as ‘‘Lionesses’’ During Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (see p. 315-316). This insert into the bill (H.R. 2647), which should be approved by the House this week, is the direct result of the March 31… more
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Future of Public Media Session @ Silverdocs - watch now!
Posted by Alison Hanold on Jun 25, 2009
Below is the video of the Future of Public Media session from Silverdocs. Please watch, share, and comment! (The clips play in sequential order - when you reach the end of clip one, clip two will automatically start.) A fun-filled, role-playing simulation that asks a cast of experts to step out of 2009 and project themselves into the public media of the future: It’s 2016, and the new titans are Ticketmaster, Google, Amazon and Hulu. Do you know where your public media went? We threw futurists, investors, business folk and public media programmers and makers together to invent a future… more
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Firefox Advancing Citizen Media Making
Posted by Micael Bogar on Jun 25, 2009
Firefox has just announced its release candidate of Firefox 3.5 for testing. Its new video features are impressive. With technology evolving at such a rapid speed, filmmaking continues to become more and more accessible to anyone with an internet connection and a flip camera. By the way, we just bought our very own HD flip camera yesterday for $200 but when we did a bit of pricing research we found ones for as cheap as $129. The video below is of Firefox’s director Mike Beltzner explaining the new video Firefox 3.5 features. Watch out mainstream media, here come the citizens. more
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Silverdocs Roundup
Posted by Alison Hanold on Jun 23, 2009
One key phrase popped up in all of the Silverdocs branding material this year: “Open Mindedness Suggested.” Based on the subjects of the films and the innovations represented in the conference, it seems that open mindedness was not only suggested, but the key ingredient of the entire festival. I spent Tuesday in the Good Pitch session of the conference. Good Pitch, which was presented by Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation and the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, was aimed at directors and producers with film projects that tackle important global and national issues. The filmmakers pitched their projects, all in various… more
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Favorite films of Silverdocs
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Jun 23, 2009
Silverdocs showcased some exciting examples of media for public knowledge and action (and hats off to Sky Sitney for awesome programming). Yoav Shamir’s Defamation raised the unmentionable question: is anti-Semitism sometimes used as a way to avoid hard questions about Israeli politics and foreign policy? The screening I attended drew heated—no, overheated—reactions from pro-Zionist and pro-Palestinian speakers. Afterward, Shamir was beseiged by people who wanted to bring the film into their temples, synagogues, and theaters, to open up a long-stifled discussion. Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein’s No Impact Man is an environmental film with a sense of humor (!). They… more
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Getting Legal at Silverdocs
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Jun 22, 2009
The SILVERDOCS conference now has a thriving strand of panels directed at teachers who use audio-visual material in the classroom and who work with kids who make video. One of their biggest headaches is understanding their rights under copyright. Can students upload their videos to YouTube? Are they permitted to clip out material from commercial (and encrypted) DVDs? Can teachers post clips onto their electronic teaching platforms? Peter Jaszi and I had a lot of fun at the panel, “The Legal 411 on Film and Media in the Classroom.” We loved hearing Devin Cheema of Discovery Channels say that she… more
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“How Green is Green?” panel at Silverdocs
Posted by Larry Engel on Jun 22, 2009
On June 18 I sat on a panel discussing green filmmaking with co-directors of No Impact Man, Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein. The panel was led by Amy King, a longtime Silverdocs associate. We started with a clip from No Impact Man, a great film about Colin Beavan and his wife, Michele, who was in the audience. The film traces the year-long effort on the family’s part to create no carbon, or at least keep it to a bare minimum. While an “eco” film it really is all about a family and its dynamics as it seeks change in lifestyle.… more
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Our Stories DC at Silverdocs!
Posted by Amy Hendrick on Jun 22, 2009
I just returned from Silverdocs where Brittney Barbour, one of the filmmakers from my youth media project, Our Stories DC, was asked to screen her film and participate in a panel discussion. The panel was made up of five other youth, some of who traveled to the festival from as far as Mozambique. They demonstrated a diversity of experience that has not historically been a part of public media. Youth media production tends to be used as an educational device in urban nonprofits (with the exception of Appalshop and similar groups). As a result, youth of color are commonly the… more
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CSM: In good company
Posted by Lauren Donia on Jun 19, 2009
The School of Communications and Center for Social Media were recently the subjects of Mark Glaser’s Mediashift blog. The post explored how American University’s School of Communications is evolving into an epicenter for the education of new journalists and media makers. Glaser’s piece includes video interviews with the Center’s director, Pat Aufderheide, as well as SOC Dean Larry Kirkman, Jan Schaffer from J-Lab, Charles Lewis from the Investigative Reporting Workshop and Amy Eisman, the head of writing classes at SOC. Glaser’s conclusion: a socially conscious and active student body and the Washington, DC location make SOC and its affiliated centers… more
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Seattle Youth Confront Media Consolidation through Doc Filmmaking
Posted by Micael Bogar on Jun 19, 2009
Reel Grrls, a Seattle based production company, just released a new short doc titled A Generation of Consolidation. The film can be viewed online in its entirety at www.generationofconsolidation.org. A Generation of Consolidation was created by high school students who are working to stop further consolidation of media corporations. It won awards at the Seattle Independent Film Festival and the Seattle International Film Festival. These student filmmakers have harnessed the power of documentary film to make their voices heard. While they fight to keep multiple channels of mainstream media alive, they in turn create informative engaging media themselves. more
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Barbara Abrash at BAVC Producer’s Institute
Posted by Barbara Abrash on Jun 15, 2009
I was in San Francisco last week, participating in a Round Table at Bay Area Video Coalition Producer’s Institute. The panel included Elspeth Revere from the MacArthur Foundation, Cara Mertes from the Sundance Documentary Institute, Sam Gregory from WITNESS and Ellen Schneider from ActiveVoice. The Producer’s Institute is a 10-day residential workshop, focused on storytelling for social change, that brings together documentary filmmakers and technologists to work together on digital applications that propel social issue documentaries into multi-platform interactive projects. This year’s projects included work by first-time filmmakers Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapily. The duo’s documentary, The Way We Get… more
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Future of Investigative Reporting Has Arrived
Posted by Micael Bogar on Jun 15, 2009
What happens to the crucial public media role of watchdogging the powerful as newspapers die? Nonprofits have poured funding into hard-hitting investigative reporting, through The Center for Investigative Reporting, The Center for Public Integrity, ProPublica and now the brand-new Investigative Reporting Workshop (part of American University’s School of Communication). Now, the Associated Press—the nation’s news lifeline—has agreed to carry these organizations’ work. There couldn’t be a more powerful stamp of approval for nonprofit news. Read AP’s press release here. Also, interesting to note J-Lab’s new report New Media Makers—A Toolkit for innovators in Community Media and Grant Making will give… more
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CSM at the BAVC Producer’s Institute 2009
Posted by Alison Hanold on Jun 12, 2009
I had the great pleasure last week to attend the presentation session for the 2009 Bay Area Video Coalition Producer’s Institute. According to their website, the Producers Institute for New Media Technologies is a “ten-day residency for eight creative teams (independent producers or public broadcasters) with a shared goal of developing and prototyping a multi-platform project inspired by, or based on a significant documentary project. The intention of the Institute is to develop socially relevant media projects for emerging digital platforms.” The presentation session involved participants of the Institute sharing the projects they developed over the previous two weeks to… more
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The Prenups Released Today
Posted by Alison Hanold on Jun 8, 2009
Documentary films and related multimedia are increasingly influential in the shaping of public discourse around social issues. (After An Inconvenient Truth, who wouldn’t want a big film to galvanize thought leaders’ and public participation?) The old professional silos are giving way to promising, sometimes tricky, new partnerships: Funders are recognizing the value of communications in general—and documentary film in particular—for advancing their portfolios. Policy shapers and advocates are using media to put human faces on public policy. Filmmakers want to tell stories that have an impact in the public square. Each sector brings its own skills, needs, concerns and assets.… more
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Media That Matters Festival
Posted by Alison Hanold on Jun 5, 2009
I had the great pleasure to attend the premiere of the ninth annual Media that Matters festival, presented by Arts Engine. The festival is comprised of 12 short films with a social justice focus. The films were various in their formats – some documentary, some narrative, some PSA, and even one “docu-music video.” One particular favorite of mine was the narrative film Immersion” which told the story of a young Mexican boy in a US school. The boy is very skilled at math, but does not have a solid understanding of the language used in the math problems in his… more
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J-Lab’s New Report: New Media Makers
Posted by Micael Bogar on Jun 3, 2009
Congratulations to our suite partner and close ally J-Lab on the release of a new report New Media Makers —A Toolkit for Innovators in Community Media and Grant Making. The report reviews the growing trend of philanthropic organizations increasingly funding media projects. Please read the press release below and check out the report itself here. New Media Makers Increasingly Getting Grants for News Jun. 01, 2009 WASHINGTON, D.C. — At least 180 community, family and other foundations have contributed nearly $128 million in grants to news and information initiatives in the United States since 2005, according to a report released… more
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Who’s Plagiarizing Now?
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Jun 3, 2009
Copyright protectionists decry copying as theft and plagiarism—and let’s just acknowledge here that sometimes it is. (Copying a work and re-using it for its original market purpose and not paying the owner what he or she is selling or renting it for is wrong.) The well-funded efforts of copyright owners’ organizations to promote this message, though, has thoroughly confused many people about their fair use rights. In many situations, including making new work and analyzing or critiquing existing work, people in the U.S. have ample rights to use copyrighted material without permission or payment. So there’s a certain pleasure—what the… more
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The Fair Use Bunker Scene
Posted by Micael Bogar on Jun 2, 2009
Have you seen Electronic Frontier Foundation Board Chairman Brad Templeton’s remix of the popular meme “the bunker scene” from the 2004 film Downfall? In this version, Hitler is trying to stop people from making remixes by invoking the DMCA. (Meta enough for you?) EFF’s article When Fair Use Is Fairly Difficult describes what technical contortions Templeton had to go through to use his fair use rights. For more clarity on what your fair use rights are, click here. more
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Fair Use Question of the Month: Citing Your Sources
Posted by Micael Bogar on Jun 1, 2009
QUESTION Dear CSM: Is it required to cite your sources when claiming fair use in an online video context? Thanks for your help, Jon ANSWER Dear Jon: Citing your sources when they are knowable, whether it’s in the body of the work or in credits, is always a nice idea, and it’s polite. It also shows that you recognize and acknowledge that the work you used is not your own. This fact further reinforces a fair use claim if you are ever challenged, and therefore providing attribution is commonly suggested. It’s an easy way to reinforce your fair use claim.… more
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Documentary Games at G4C 2009
Posted by Alison Hanold on May 30, 2009
The presence of interactivity in documentary has increased tremendously with the evolution of online community building and promotion, but has interactive media evolved to the point where a documentary can be a game? This was explored today at the Games for Change conference with a panel focusing on documentary games. Panel description: As game theory and the practice of making games become recognized as valued pedagogical and cultural processes across a broad spectrum of disciplines, we see forthcoming a movement specific to a new genre — documentary gaming — which will position game systems within a framework that questions the… more
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Make Media Matter Panel at the Newseum
Posted by Lauren Donia on May 29, 2009
Yesterday, CSM staffers attended the IFC Make Media Matter panel discussion at the Newseum in D.C. Gideon Yago, host of the television show IFC Media Project with Gideon Yago, moderated the event. One of the event’s sponsors — the National Association for Media Literacy Education — partnered with the Center to create our Code of Best Practices in Media Literacy Education. The panel discussion was one event in a multi-faceted media literacy campaign. The panel was comprised of a well-known, but hardly diverse group of journalists: George Stephanopoulos, Greta Van Susteren, John King, Juan Williams, Marcus Brauchli, Norman Ornstein and… more
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Update on Code of Best Practices in Sustainable Filmmaking
Posted by Micael Bogar on May 28, 2009
As key author on the Code of Best Practices in Sustainable Filmmaking, Larry Engel will be spending the summer promoting the Code at upcoming festivals and conferences this summer and fall. Andrew Buchanan, his co-author of the Code of Best Practices in Sustainable Filmmaking, will “attend” where possible via Skype. Leading off is a session on Friday, June 12th in Savannah, Georgia at the Blue Ocean Film Festival. The following week he will be at Silverdocs in Washington, DC on June 18th. Two more sessions will be held at the UFVA annual conference in New Orleans in August and at… more
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Fair Use and Academic Freedom: Here Come the Communications Scholars
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on May 26, 2009
At the annual meeting of the International Communication Association a group of us formed a committee to create a Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Communication Scholarship. Chris Boulton, a grad student at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, kicked it off with a story of not being permitted to file his M.A. thesis until he took out all copyrighted material. The problem was that the copyrighted material—pictures of children’s fashion advertisements—were the thesis’s core data. Other scholars in the room pointed to other practices that needed clarification. Could professors studying advertisements share their collected research materials with other scholars? Could… more
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Regulating Media 2.0
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on May 26, 2009
At the Quello Center’s annual symposium on communications and media policy “Rethinking Media Policy in the Age of New Media,” a number of us spoke about regulating in the public interest. I argued, like many (including Free Press in its great new publication Changing Media), for a robust universal broadband policy. I also argued, as is explained in Public Media 2.0, for taxpayer funding for public media beyond broadcasting. One of the most intriguing presentations, for me, was from Arizona State University’s Matthew Hindman. He addressed the question of how we measure “concentration of ownership” in a web environment, giving… more
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Internews Media Leadership Awards
Posted by Micael Bogar on May 20, 2009
As members of the Host Committee, we’re proud to invite you to the 2009 Internews Media Leadership Awards. On Tuesday June 2nd from 5:30-7:00pm Internews will honor media makers that work to empower local media around the world. For more details please visit their website here. more
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Announcing the release of our new video, Remix Culture: Fair Use is Your Friend
Posted by Alison Hanold on May 18, 2009
Last summer the release of the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video nearly crashed our servers with people downloading the document. Based on this demand, we created Remix Culture: Fair Use Is Your Friend is a collaboration with the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property—a program of AU’s Washington College of Law—along with Stanford Law School’s Fair Use Project. The video was funded by Google. The video was directed by our graduate fellow, Claire Darby, and features interviews with Dr. Mitzuko Ito, research director of the University of California Humanities Research Institute and Anthony Falzone,… more
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National Ethnic Media Expo and Awards
Posted by Micael Bogar on May 18, 2009
As media partners for this event, we encourage everyone who’s going to be in Atlanta to come. To register visit expo.newamericamedia.org more
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Free Press, Plugging More and Better Public Media
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on May 17, 2009
Last Thursday’s Free Press Summit provided a shiny showcase for the media reform organization. Its organizers showed that it can pull a crowd of policy-wonks, bring in their luminaries (including the acting head of the Federal Communications Commission and two former heads), and get Ray Suarez to postpone his Newshour activities long enough to ask sharp questions of the once and future powerful. Moreover, Free Press debuted a thick tome of policy suggestions for Obama’s media reform agenda. Its call for universal, accessible, competitive and middleware-free broadband with more unlicensed spectrum melds the best of recent thinking on how to… more
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Art’s Engine’s Media That Matters Festival
Posted by Micael Bogar on May 15, 2009
Media That Matters: MORE THAN A FESTIVAL World Premiere June 3rd! SCREEN the collection of jury-selected films. ACT now to make a change. IMPACT your community by using short films with on-the-ground activism. visit www.mediathatmattersfest.org for more details more
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Obama As The Social Media Innovator
Posted by Micael Bogar on May 12, 2009
It is no surprise at this stage that Obama’s use of social media was a major force behind his landslide victory. PR Firm Edelman’s most recent white paper Social Pulpit: Barack Obama’s Social Media Toolkit outlines the areas in which Obama’s team excelled in using this powerful tool to engage publics. The paper talks about the multitude of videos created by not only the Obama team but by the supporters as well, “The authentic user-generated video is more compelling and elicits more support than official productions because we are more trusting of information that is from people who hold similar… more
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The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Social Good Podcast with Jessica Clark
Posted by Micael Bogar on May 8, 2009
The Chronicle of Philanthropy is the newspaper of the nonprofit world. It is the No. 1 news source, in print and online, for charity leaders, fund raisers, grant makers, and other people involved in the philanthropic enterprise. Listen to Jessica Clark’s fifteen minute podcast on The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s new podcast series Social Good with host Allison Fine on the future of public media and whether nonprofits models are the future of newspapers. more
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DMCA , Fair Use, Documentary Filmmakers and Remixers
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on May 7, 2009
On day two of the Copyright Office’s hearings about exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) , documentary filmmakers and remix artists and their supporters came to Washington, D.C. to show regulators the cost of criminalizing copying of popular culture. (Read about day one where the focus was on fair use and educators here.) To recap, the issue is: The DMCA prohibits breaking of any encryption on copyrighted digital material, even when you have a legal right to the material inside—for instance, a fair use right. If you can make a strong case for the need to do so… more
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DMCA, Fair Use and Educators
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on May 7, 2009
The best theater in Washington, D.C. is in federal agencies and hearing rooms. That’s where ritual battles over power take place. The first day of the Copyright Office’s hearings about exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act pretty much met expectations. (Read about day two where the focus was on fair use for documentarians and remix artists, here.) The issue: The DMCA prohibits breaking of any encryption on copyrighted digital material, even when you have a legal right to the material inside—for instance, a fair use right. If you can make a strong case for the need to do so… more
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New podcasts from CSM director Pat Aufderheide
Posted by Alison Hanold on May 6, 2009
As a part of the School of Communication’s American Forum, CSM director Pat Aufderheide recently spoke at length with Danna Walker about two key issues: public media and fair use. Be sure to give these eye opening podcasts a listen! Patricia Aufderheide on fair use can be listened to here. Patricia Aufderheide on public media can be listened to here. more
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Beyond Broadcast 2009
Posted by Micael Bogar on May 5, 2009
Have you signed up yet for this year’s Beyond Broadcast? The conference, which the Center is co-sponsoring, is June 3-6 at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School. The theme is: Public Service Media from Local to Global. The Center’s Jessica Clark, a co-organizer of the conference, is also organizing a panel on impact measurement for mission-driven media. Register today at beyondbroadcast.net, and feel free to sign in to the Beyond Broadcast social network site where conversations are blooming. We’re using the same social networking site as last year, so if you’re already signed up, you can use the same… more
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Congratulations to VISIONS winners!
Posted by Alison Hanold on May 4, 2009
American University’s School of Communications announced the winners of the VISIONS festival on Friday, and I was pleased to present a Center for Social Media award to Michael Hyde, Christina Miesel, Jen Collins, Mariana Pereira and Nick Shupper’s film Housecalls. The film takes an intimate look at the under served elderly community of southeast D.C. and one dedicated physician who comes to their homes for treatment. This film demonstrated the importance of addressing social issues through character development and nuance, and we commend this team for their great work. Also congratulations to our own graduate fellow Claire Darby for winning… more
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Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Dance Collections
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on May 4, 2009
You’re running an archive featuring dance and would love to exhibit some of the work in your collection that shows the evolution of a dance trend. Do you need to get permission from copyright holders or can you employ fair use? You’re also announcing the exhibit on your website, and would like to run a few clips from some of the most famous material. Can you do that without copyright holder permission? You’re thrilled that, to launch the exhibit, a major scholar will be giving a lecture at your museum. Can you offer a video podcast of that lecture without… more
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Spreadable Media, Digital Libraries and MiT6
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Apr 27, 2009
It was inspiring, as always, to attend the Media in Transition conference (held April 24-26), or MiT6. Although this will be Henry Jenkins’s last conference as co-host (he’s going to the University of Southern California), he as well as his co-organizers David Thorburn and William Uricchio all assured me that the conference will continue. That’s good news, because MiT6 has become a destination conference for people concerned with the social and political implications of the digital era. This year, the topic was storage and transmission. Rick Prelinger was the sprite of the conference, with his provocative, inviting queries and proposals.… more
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Human Rights Film Series 2009 Brainstorming
Posted by Genna Duberstein on Apr 22, 2009
What human rights films have you seen lately that were particularly moving? We’re looking for ideas! Working in conjunction with the Office of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the Washington College of Law, we are gearing up for the 2009 Human Rights Film Series in the fall. In case you missed last year’s speakers and events, check out a highlight from one of the visiting filmmakers. In this clip, When the Levees Broke Oscar-nominated producer Sam Pollard shares with the audience his process in working with Spike Lee to find interviews for their three part documentary film that was… more
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South West Screen Adopts Sustainable Filmmaking Code
Posted by Micael Bogar on Apr 21, 2009
We are pleased to announce that the South West Screen has adopted our Code of Best Practices in Sustainable Filmmaking. In their announcement they explained our Code, “outline(s) the environmentally friendly practices you can take to make sure your production causes the minimum impact on your surroundings and the planet. From re-useable water containers to carpooling, the measures are simple and effective – and they could also save you money.” South West Screen is a leader in England in the field of independent filmmaking. Their website offers a variety of resources such as the ability to upload your film, collaboration… more
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Outraged Librarians and Fair Use
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Apr 20, 2009
At the New York Metro Library Council’s Digital Dilemmas conference, librarians (mostly from higher ed) gathered to puzzle out how to meet the needs of scholars who increasingly are everywhere but the library—even online. Check out this video by Tony Hirst for a EduPunk take on this phenomenon: Cliff Lynch, the wizard of CNI described a research landscape that is ever more collaborative and drawing on ever-deeper databases, many of them non-academic and some of them annotated by crowd sourcing. My presentation on fair use codes of best practices brought a passionate commentary from one librarian. “This model [of best… more
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Henry Jenkins Reviews Our White Paper
Posted by Micael Bogar on Mar 31, 2009
Check out Henry Jenkin’s Confessions of an Aca/Fan two part blog interview with Jessica Clark where they discuss our new white paper Public Media 2.0: Dynamic, Engaged Publics. In the introduction Professor Jenkins calls it an important paper and notes, “The report, Public Media 2.0, embraces the affordances and practices of an era of participatory culture and social networks to identify strategies for public media which emphasize its capacity to attract and mobilize publics.” Read the interview here: Part One Part Two more
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Fair Use Question of the Month: Download from YouTube
Posted by Claire Darby on Mar 31, 2009
QUESTION Dear CSM: I work for an educational institution (we receive state funding) and some instructors here want to use Youtube videos for their classes. Some would like to download the Youtube videos, and put them on their websites and or powerpoint presentations. I know Youtube’s terms of service state that you cannot download videos and use them offline (without a direct link to Youtube). Is there an exception in Fair Use or Copyright laws that allows an educational institution to download copies of Youtube videos and use them separately from the website for instructional purposes? Thanks for any help,… more
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Sneak Preview of Scott Kirsner’s New Book
Posted by Micael Bogar on Mar 26, 2009
At our Making Your Media Matter event last month, new documentary guru Scott Kirsner shared insights with us on our panel Outreach and Connection. You can watch the entire conference here.Didn’t get enough? Good news. Scott’s new book Fans, Friends & Followers comes out next week and we’ve got a great sneak preview. Fans, Friends & Followers is divided into three sections: an opening essay that lays out some of the “new rules” for using digital tools to build a fan base and an economically-viable creative career; a set of 30 interviews with filmmakers, musicians, writers, visual artists, and others… more
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Investigative Reporting Workshop’s Bank Tracker
Posted by Micael Bogar on Mar 23, 2009
One of our fellow centers at the School of Communication, The Investigative Reporting Workshop (IRW) has launched its first project called BankTracker. Wendell Cochran and Chuck Lewis, directors of IRW, have taken data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation about every bank in the nation and calculated the amount of troubled loans and foreclosed property it had on its books at the end of the year. MSNBC.com is publishing stories and charts based on the data that will also link to the IRW site. Track your own bank here and a big congratulations to IRW! more
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Documentaries—Is the Future Downloadable?
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Mar 22, 2009
Some of the best film viewing experiences at SXSW were documentaries. There was Trimpin, by Peter Esmonde, which introduces you to an oddball musician-engineer who constructs astounding and improbable instruments out of junk. There was Nirit Peled and Dave Hemmigway’s Say My Name, just one part of an extraordinary project to make public the creativity of women rappers. There was The Least of These , by Clark and Jesse Lyda, which brings us into the detention center where children and families of undocumented immigrants are locked up. If you couldn’t get into the theater to watch the last one, you… more
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Gaming for Public Media 2.0?
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Mar 16, 2009
For anyone interested in interactive public media, the burgeoning world of DIY gaming is fascinating. At SXSW film festival, a user-generated gaming panel opened my eyes. How big is user-generated gaming? Well, people contribute 50,000 gaming applications to Facebook in one year, according to Gareth Davis, everything from puzzles to monster slaying. The newish website Congregate has 12,000 games on it, almost all of them made by a single person. With low-low costs, thin streams of revenue from ads, payments for game items and/or fees for games actually make profits. Boyd Multerer from Microsoft noted, “Right now we have really… more
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CSM at the Remix/Mashup 2009 Conference
Posted by Alison Hanold on Mar 13, 2009
I had the great pleasure to sit on the opening panel at the Remix/Mashup Conference that was hosted by the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University. At this panel I shared what I have learned as the head researcher into copyright use in online video at the CSM, dating back to our publication of Recut, Reframe, Recycle. The key point that I shared that was echoed by my fellow panelists is that popular culture has become so entrenched in the public conscience that it has essentially become the vocabulary for those who create online video. Sampling and quoting… more
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Public Media 2.0 Covers Public Media 2.0
Posted by Micael Bogar on Mar 5, 2009
Check out Ground Report.com’s interview with Jessica Clark where Rachel Sterne and Jessica talk a bit about the transitions happening in the field of public media and what that means for the future. In our white paper Public Media 2.0: Dynamic Engaged Publics, we suggest that organizations such as Ground Report.com are emerging as leaders in the field of public media 2.0 and traditional public broadcasters are in danger of extinction if they don’t catch up. This interview is a perfect example. Watch it here. more
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Unseen and Unheard: Doc Storytelling in the Other Washington DC
Posted by Micael Bogar on Mar 3, 2009
Unseen and Unheard: Documentary Storytelling in the Other Washington is a new cross-disciplinary course in Anthropology and Filmmaking taught by American University Filmmaker-in-Residence Nina Shapiro-Perl, PhD. This project, which was partially funded by the Center for Social Media, allows students to document alternative stories in the DC community. According to an article on the SOC website, some of the stories include, “at-risk youth who immerse themselves in the arts; struggling immigrants who find their voice as community leaders; “last-chance” teenagers who build boats and launch new lives; and elderly fishermen, who treasure their time on the river and reflect on… more
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Making Your Media Matter In Retrospect
Posted by Micael Bogar on Feb 27, 2009
A big thank you to everyone who made Making Your Media Matter such a success. This year we packed the house with people sitting in the aisles. Here are a few things people said about Making Your Media Matter 2009: “The talent among the presenters and participants was inspiring —but even more impressive was the absence of big egos or a sense of competition. Everyone was obviously driven by a passion for their work and willing to share.” “Great program all around. I felt like every moment was productive but not frantic. Thank you!” “Can’t wait until next year!” “One… more
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White Paper Public Media 2.0: Dynamic Engaged Publics. Have You Read It Yet?
Posted by Micael Bogar on Feb 26, 2009
Just wanted to give you the heads up on our new white paper Public Media 2.0: Dynamic Engaged Publics. It continues to be read and embraced by more and more media makers from within the world of public media 2.0. Who are these media makers? You. If you’re curious what we mean, we encourage you to check out our new report here. Wanna get a quick synopsis? Check out this five minute clip on YouTube or this powerpoint on Slideshare. We highly encourage you to both spread the word and add your comments and thoughts on this. Currently the center… more
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Our Stories, Online
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Feb 18, 2009
How can young people make videos that not only reveal the terms of their lives, but that invite others to engage with them, share their own stories, and build from story to relationship? That’s what American University lecturer Amy Hendrick did in her project, Our Stories DC, which was funded by the Center for Social Media under a grant to explore the future of public media from the Ford Foundation. Hendrick’s site introduces you to Brittney, who describes the challenges that ensued from having a white best friend in elementary school. And to Keagoe, who explains how a group of… more
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Public Media 2.0: Argue about it
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Feb 17, 2009
What could public media be tomorrow? We know the advantages and flaws of the media that stimulate our public culture now—our public radio and TV, our newspapers and magazines, our cable access and DBS channels and so forth. But what could public media look like when it’s crossed with web 2.0 tools? Take a look, in our new publication Public Media 2.0: Dynamic, Engaged Publics—available at futureofpublicmedia.net. And argue about it. Over the last four years, with the generous help of a Ford Foundation grant, the Center for Social Media has explored this question. Our report synthesizes knowledge won from… more
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Keeping the conversation going on Making Your Media Matter
Posted by Alison Hanold on Feb 16, 2009
Our fifth annual Making Your Media Matter came to a close on Friday evening, and I was excited to see the buzz in the room about the topic of our last panel — does making a beautiful film about a “difficult” issue compromise your subject? Has democratized technology made it so that craftsmanship is no longer valued? Does a film with gorgeous cinematography not feel as “real” as one filmed on a camera phone? Everyone had an interesting perspective, and the dialogue between panelists and audience was so active that we are very inspired to keeping it going. In the… more
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Woody Wickham’s Legacies
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Feb 11, 2009
It’s taken a little time to fathom that Woody Wickham is really gone. Woody, who was a funder and mentor of many media arts efforts over the last 25 years, had a resurgence of a gall bladder cancer and passed away with dignity in Chicago last month. He was 66 years old. His legacies are everywhere in the world of public media. This year’s Making Your Media Matter conference at the Center for Social Media is dedicated to him. After graduating from Harvard, where he exercised his wit as editor of the Lampoon, he had worked in Mexico before returning… more
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WeMedia podcast interview with Jessica Clark
Posted by Micael Bogar on Feb 6, 2009
WeMedia is producing a regular podcast that features in-depth interviews with prominent media, technology, and social change figures, as well as distinguished experts on current affairs and news. Listen to Future of Public Media director Jessica Clark on the recent WeMedia’s podcast where she addresses and discusses issues surrounding public media 2.0. more
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Media Literacy Video Case Studies
Posted by Micael Bogar on Feb 3, 2009
The Media Spot, in collaboration with Media Education Lab and us at the Center, have created three case study videos. The features address issues within the realm of fair use in media literacy education. The first video deals with an elementary school in Brooklyn, New York and its work with digital production. The second video looks at a virtual zoo project created by Upper Marion High School and the fair use implications involved there. The third and final video concerns Ithaca College’s process of applying fair use in the case of their Look Sharp magazine. If you haven’t had a… more
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Register today for Making Your Media Matter 2009!
Posted by Alison Hanold on Jan 29, 2009
Making Your Media Matter 2009 is approaching quickly, and we are gearing up to have some fruitful conversations about the past, present, and future of social issue media making. Seats are filling up quickly, so I would recommend registering soon to guarantee a seat. We are honored to welcome Gordon Quinn as a keynote speaker at the conference, where he will be talking about ethical issues in cinema verite. Gordon has been making social issue documentaries for over 40 years, and is the founding member of Chicago’s Kartemquin Films. Gordon has produced many critically acclaimed films (Hoop Dreams, Stevie, At… more
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Doc Filmmakers: Rescue Fair Use from the DMCA
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Jan 28, 2009
We’re looking for your story—by January 30. Have you ever found yourself unable to make the documentary work you wanted to make, because you could not access the copyrighted material you needed? That happens to lots of people who could quote copyrighted material—perhaps a clip from a Hollywood film, perhaps a snatch of music—that is locked up in an encrypted DVD. As you know, breaking code on a DVD violates the law—even when you are trying to access content you have a legal right to! Now, you could be part of making history—by creating an exemption that permits documentary filmmakers… more
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Fair Use Code for Open Courseware Coming Up
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Jan 27, 2009
Some universities such as MIT, Yale, Stanford and others—gathered in an Open Courseware Consortium or OCWC— now offer “open courseware.” Open Courseware means freely available course materials such as syllabi, lectures and other course materials. But sometimes the course materials are cripplingly incomplete, because the universities avoid posting any third-party copyrighted material online. And of course, they don’t post many courses in the humanities, where analyzing and quoting copyrighted material is not just common but often absolutely critical to the work. As in many other creative communities, university open courseware specialists know they have fair use rights, but they’re not… more
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Educause Webinar for Librarians on Fair Use
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Jan 27, 2009
Educause, the leading organization on higher education and information technology, highlighted the issue of fair use and best practices in a live webinar attended by hundreds and accessed by many more in archived form. Watch here. Legal scholar Peter Jaszi and Center director Aufderheide explained to an audience largely composed of librarians the value of creating best practices codes that clarify how a particular community interprets the principles of fair use. One particular community highlighted in the webinar — university librarians face fair use issues daily, when professors ask to post films to an electronic classroom site, when distance learning… more
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A Weekend at Sundance
Posted by Alison Hanold on Jan 23, 2009
I attended the Sundance Film Festival this past weekend touting the Documentary Filmmaker’s Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use, and our upcoming Making Your Media Matter conference. I shared the table at the lodge on Sunday with our friends at Arte East, an NYC nonprofit that supports and promotes artists from the Middle East. Wendy Levy of BAVC was also at the lodge that day promoting the panel she is moderating on January 22nd titled “The New Documentary Movement: Emerging Technologies and Participatory Culture,” which will feature “filmmakers and industry experts who are pushing the limits of technology-inspired tools… more
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Crowdsourced Inauguration Reporting—Be the News You Want to Read
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Jan 16, 2009
Want to tell people what you’re up to inauguration week? Want to get on-the-ground reports from the scene? American University’s School of Communication, NPR and CBS have teamed up to make it all possible, through InaugurationReport.com. Contribute using Twitter (use tag #inaug09), YouTube, Flickr, iphone and Google Phones, and even text messaging (all tagged inaug09). You could find out where the warming stands are, and also how well crowdsourced news reporting works! more
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Social Media Overload - Sometimes Less is More
Posted by Micael Bogar on Jan 6, 2009
In December, fellow blogger on Social Media Today DJ Francis wrote a clever “Dear John” breaking up with his Twitter followers —or as he calls them “tweople.” While the letter was written in somewhat jest, the key theme was very much a valid issue that social media users face more and more. With Twitter in particular, as the site gets increasingly more popular, the utility of it wanes. DJ Francis points out the follow/follower volume ratio problem where the more people you follow, the more lost you become in the “noise” of it all. Fortunately, it is not all a… more
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Public Media 2.0 and the Obama Administration
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Jan 2, 2009
What should the Obama administration do to promote public media 2.0? One good idea, which the presidential transition team already appears to take seriously, is to vastly increase the broadband capacity of the country. The U.S. sadly lags many other advanced industrial countries in broadband, which is hampering a transition to a fully interactive media environment. Other good ideas surfaced in the transition team’s discussions, including some that we at the Center have passed on to the team. We strongly believe that tomorrow’s public media 2.0 will be fully interactive, and will be measured by its ability to generate publics… more
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Innovation in Focus Roundup
Posted by Micael Bogar on Dec 17, 2008
Over the past year, we have featured a range of innovative projects by public media outlets and their allies, including Link TV, PBS, PRX, ITVS, the Sundance Institute and the NBPC. Throughout this process, we have noticed that success in innovation comes when media makers take advantage of the disruptive nature of the transition to participatory media. Openness, inquisitiveness, and creativity have given them the chance to integrate new technologies and at the same time forge partnerships and collaborative projects in ways never possible before. In other words, we are seeing a movement to reinscribe the “public” in public media.… more
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We Media Game Changers Announced
Posted by Micael Bogar on Dec 11, 2008
We Media has officially announced its nine game changers. Congratulations to Twitter, Innocentive, The Knight Foundation, Ushahidi, Freewheelin, Zefrank, Yugo Nakamura, David Plouffe, and Social Vibe. From over 150 applicants, a panel of distinguished judgesnarrowed it down to 35 finalists and then chose the eight winners. They also gave the community a chance to decide and opened voting online for the special Community Award. The Community winner, Social Vibe, is an exciting opportunity to use social media as a way to raise money for good causes. They have created a new business model that brings together brand and cause marketing… more
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Our Role in an Open Government
Posted by Micael Bogar on Dec 4, 2008
Participatory Culture Foundation, one of our partners for our fifth annual Making Your Media Matter conference in February is working hard to create a new online infrastructure for producing and distributing public media called Miro. They are working to not only expand the field of open source video online globally through open source software creation and their translation service, they are also working to create local platforms to connect communities locally. Partnering up with Mozilla and Change Congress, their most recent project is a direct call to the new administration. In light of the recent elections, Americans have been promised… more
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UFVA Adopts Documentary Filmmakers’ Code of Best Practices in Fair Use
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Dec 1, 2008
The University Film and Video Association, which has endorsed the Documentary Filmmakers’ Satement of Best Practices in Fair Use, has now placed the Statement and language appropriate for course syllabi on its website. This not only makes it even easier for teachers in film programs across higher education to incorporate fair use into their teaching. It also offers the imprimatur of the national body representing film programs. more
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European Filmmakers and Fair Use
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Nov 30, 2008
As U.S. documentary filmmakers have increasingly benefited from the copyright doctrine of fair use, European documentary filmmakers have cast about for how to similarly benefit. The trouble is, instead of the broad and flexible fair use doctrine, the many European nations instead have a variety of specific and inflexible exceptions and limitations. But even so, in November Europeans have figured out some first steps, showcased at the annual meeting of the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam. With the assistance of the Center and the Washington College of Law, they participated in a European Union inquiry on exceptions and limitations… more
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Bruce Gilden’s Visit -A Night of Storytelling
Posted by Leena Jayaswal on Nov 28, 2008
On Wednesday November 19th Magnum Photographer Bruce Gilden spoke to a crowd filled theater as part of the Centers’ Camera as Catalyst lecture series. Topics included Coney Island, Fashion photography, Haiti and the beginnings of his next project- foreclosures. At first I did not know what to expect. I watched a clip of Bruce that was on YouTube as the camera operator followed him on the streets of NY while Gilden photographed. Gilden shoots with a 28mm wide -angle lens and does so purposely. Using the famous quote by Robert Capa, “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close… more
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Call for Papers: IP/Gender: Mapping the Connections
Posted by Micael Bogar on Nov 27, 2008
6th Annual Symposium April 24, 2009 Special Theme: Female Fan Cultures and Intellectual Property Deadline for submission of abstracts: December 19, 2008 The 6th Annual Symposium on “IP/Gender: Mapping the Connections” seeks papers on female subcultures and their relationship to intellectual property and copyright regimes, with a particular emphasis on fan works and culture. Appropriate topics include: fan arts, including fan fiction, arts, music, filk, crafts, and vids; and fan communities: including clubs, forums, lists, websites, wikis, discussion groups, rec sites, and other creative, celebratory, or analytical communities. Introduction & Context Historically, the study of subcultures has been biased toward… more
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Who is doing social media training?
Posted by JD Lasica on Nov 17, 2008
A handful of us in the social media space are moving ahead with the idea of planning a series of Social Media Innovation Camps around the country. Two weeks ago Jessica Clark posed the question, Could “Social Media Innovation Camps” help power ground-up public media? We’re still at the stage of gauging reaction (positive so far) and garnering input on similar initiatives (sparse so far. So I thought I’d share what I’ve uncovered to date. The notion of increasing civic engagement through social media is not a new one, but it has taken on widely differing forms depending on which… more
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Where Hostile Governments Meet Public Media
Posted by Micael Bogar on Nov 14, 2008
How can public media develop in regions where governments are hostile to press freedoms? A look at emerging projects in the South Caucasus—a region of independent former Soviet countries linked both geographically and historically—offers some clues. We have created a list of five notable public media projects: Institute for Reporter’s Freedom and Safety, Caucasus Center of Peacemaking Initiatives, Internews, the South Caucasus blogosphere and lastly everyone’s favorite Facebook. Not quite initiated into the EU like the Baltic states, but not as far east as Borat’s Kazakhstan, the South Caucasus countries stand at the crossroads of capitalist western ideals and the… more
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Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Publication!
Posted by Micael Bogar on Nov 11, 2008
Here at the Center for Social Media, and in conjunction with the Program on Information, Justice and Intellectual Property, and the Media Education Lab, we are proud to announce our Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education. Check out the article written by Jeff Young at the Chronicle for Higher Education and now you can get your very own copy here. Share it with any educators you know. This is a perfect tool to inspire and enable teachers and students to use copyrighted material in the classroom when it’s appropriate and necessary. more
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Vote on Every Human Has Rights Media Awards
Posted by Micael Bogar on Nov 10, 2008
Our friends at Internews have announced a great public media project titled Every Human Has Rights Media Awards, organized on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). They have asked the public to vote on the Public Prize. Internews explains here: Vote online to select the most eye-opening report, from a selection of 30 winning stories from journalists and bloggers around the world. The Public Prize will be awarded on 6 December 2008 in Paris, France during a ceremony supported by The Elders, the EHHR campaign for the 60th Anniversary of the UDHR.… more
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So You Think You Can Be President?
Posted by Alison Hanold on Nov 4, 2008
This campaign season has been lively, intense, and the inspiration for a wide array of online video. We’ve spent nearly a year tracking political remix online, and showing how online video creators are exercising fair use of copyrighted material in order to create powerful and innovative commentary on the political landscape. The evolution of online video has become nationally relevant with this election season, and to commemorate election day, we have one last video to share. Jonathan McIntosh’s So You Think You Can Be President? This video cuts together the presidential debates with commentary from the judges of the Fox… more
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Should Online Video Look More like Wikipedia or TV?
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Nov 3, 2008
A clutch of people concerned with the future of online video, including Center director Pat Aufderheide, met at Yale on October 31 to talk about what it would take to make creating an online video look a little more like, say, creating a text document to share on the Internet. Turns out that online video faces serious challenges, if it’s to become a tool for participatory public media rather than just more TV. Most online video software and related programs (such as editing programs) have been developed by companies as proprietary products for specific purposes, rather than in the open-ended,… more
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Activating the Archive
Posted by Barbara Abrash on Oct 30, 2008
Last week I visited Chimpanzee Productions for a sneak preview of an unprecedented experiment in marrying documentary filmmaking with multiplatform social networking. Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People is a 2-hour documentary film and multimedia outreach project, Inspired by Dr. Deborah Willis’ path-breaking book, Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers, 1840 to the Present (Norton, 2000), that reveals the ways in which African American photographers – known and unknown – have constructed representations of themselves and their social, political, and aesthetic worlds. In what filmmaker and president of Chimpanzee Productions, Thomas Allen… more
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Public Anthro Conference
Posted by Micael Bogar on Oct 29, 2008
On October 31st and November 1st at American University the Anthropology department is hosting the more
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Civic media training
Posted by JD Lasica on Oct 24, 2008
Everybody is doing social media these days. But who’s doing social media training? More specifically, training sessions for public media—or if you will, public-spirited social media or civic media. Who’s holding workshops? What kind of information are you including that’s specific to the public interest, or civic action? Who are your primary target communities for these workshops? Please post your comments below, or email me at jdlasica[at]gmail[.]com. more
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Journalistic principles
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Oct 24, 2008
Nick Couldry, a senior scholar in the philosophy of communication who writes on media and public life at Goldsmiths, University of London, visited last week to talk about ethics and journalism. He pointed to the declining standards for accuracy, truth and public responsibility in ever-more-economically-stressed newspapers, and to the absence of standards bodies that can provide principles rather than prescriptions. He proposed that new norms—applying alike to professionals and non-professionals—might include not only accuracy and comprehensiveness but, in an unbounded Internet environment and a globalized news environment, also “hospitality.” Hospitality, in Couldry’s framework, means thinking of a wide range of… more
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Campaign videos—fair use, not infringement
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Oct 20, 2008
Political campaigns have been busily clipping out snippets of news coverage and building them into campaign videos. And the TV networks have just as busily been sending demands to YouTube and other video sites to remove those videos as violation of copyright. Only problem: they’re not violations of copyright. They’re fully within the umbrella of fair use—the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment in some cases. Learn more at the Center’s fair use site. In fact, when makers protest such demands to take down their videos, the videos go right back up. Now the Center, along with… more
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Open debates: linking copyright and the new public media
Posted by Jessica Clark on Oct 16, 2008
Last night’s tense exchange between presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama marked the end of an extraordinary cycle of debates. The sheer number, combined with the unusual amount of public interest, forced organizers to innovate new forms and provide more openings for interaction. Now, a bipartisan coalition of newsmakers, media critics and bloggers are demanding permanent change to make the debates more “of the people,” in part by asking the networks to release debate footage into the public domain to be used for commentary and exchange on online platforms. In a letter to the candidates, the coalition proposed two… more
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Submit your film to the Media That Matters Film Festival!
Posted by Micael Bogar on Oct 10, 2008
Submit your film now for the chance to be one of the final twelve jury-selected films and become part of our outreach and distribution efforts to create social change through film. Following a New York City Premiere, Awards Ceremony and industry networking events in June 2009, your film will take part in the Media That Matters international, multi-platform campaign with DVD distribution, broadcasts, streaming and hundreds of screenings across the globe! We create accompanying discussion guides and screening materials to promote conversation and encourage educators, activists and organizations alike to Take Action around your film. All finalists will be awarded… more
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A Case of Selective Censorship
Posted by Micael Bogar on Oct 9, 2008
The recent pull of Saturday Night Lives’ Bailout skit has got us wondering — why did NBC choose to upload their popular Palin skits on several massive online video platforms (hulu.com, youtube.com) but in the same week, aggressively clean the web of this Bailout skit? Some have argued that this was done in fear that the Bailout skit would sharpen criticism of democrats and therefore hurt Barack Obama’s campaign. A closer look at the details offers the explanation of a potential law suit from “victims” of the bailout skit. The underlying issue for us at the Center, however, is the… more
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Wikipedia’s Town Hall on Sarah Palin Techn
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Oct 8, 2008
Some time ago, I argued that you could see Wikipedia as “the new town hall.” Wikipedia entries aren’t stable encyclopedia entries, even if they look like it; they are active, constantly morphing sites of public discussion about how to understand something. Others have made this point repeatedly, and probably Yochai Benkler has put the frame around the argument most authoritatively, in his Wealth of Networks. Now, take a look at the Sarah Palin entry on Wikipedia. Thanks to an analysis by Dan Cohen, the brilliant director of George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media, he shows 500 entries… more
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Blogosphere Blasts the Bailout Bill
Posted by Micael Bogar on Oct 3, 2008
So, it’s official, the House passed the bailout. It’s also official that the financial crisis has generated a groundswell of public media responses. These have ranged widely, from citizen initiatives to professionally produced tools from commercial outlets. According to Micah Siftry of the Personal Democracy Forum, the networked public sphere is rising and taking this bull by the horns. “Whatever happens with the bailout bill, I don’t think this genie can be stuffed back into the bottle. An old way of doing things is dying, and the new one being born isn’t quite in place yet,” he writes on an… more
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Social Media Changes the Face of Debate
Posted by Micael Bogar on Sep 26, 2008
The presidential debates are coming! This year, they are sparking unprecedented forms of social media. Here at the CSM we’ve made a list of our top three social media debate initiatives. Check them out and get involved in one. 1. MYSPACE’s MYDEBATE: Just due to the sheer number of users (over 6,000 and counting) and beautiful design this takes the number one spot. This interactive program gets you prepped on the issues to be discussed, allows you to identify your favorite candidate and will have a live chat available during the debates for users to interact. 2. Debatepedia: This wiki,… more
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Documentary Film + Direct Action = Social Media
Posted by Micael Bogar on Sep 17, 2008
What happens when you see a documentary film that moves you? Do you feel sad? Helpless? It is important to remember that social justice documentary films are a form of social media that require follow up to be fully effective. In order to take the leap from informed yet helpless spectator to empowered social media activist, it requires further investigation and action. At the Death House Door , one of the films chosen for our Human Rights Film Series , is a particularly poignant example of a way to take information from a film and act on it. At the… more
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Harry Potter and Fair Use
Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Sep 14, 2008
Once upon a time, a man named Vander Ark was devoted to the world of Harry Potter. He created an online reference source, often quoting or paraphrasing directly from J.K. Rowling’s books; the source was widely appreciated, including by Rowling herself. Then he decided to publish it in book form. J.K. Rowling sued, and he defended himself with the copyright doctrine of fair use. And he lost. The judge found that he had taken too much of Rowling’s creative work. The decision went against a fair user, but it wasn’t a decision that was all bad for fair users. In… more
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Total Recut Video Remix Challange Winners Announced
Posted by Micael Bogar on Sep 12, 2008
We were happy to participate in the Total Recut Video Remix Challenge. Just recently the winners were announced. You can check out their impressive work at TotalRecut.com First place winner DJ Le Clown from France will receive a laptop for his remix ‘Xmas in New York City,’ embedded here. Second Place winner Jata Haan from the Netherlands will receive a digital camcorder for her remix, ‘Composition.’ Third Place winner Ricardo Carrion from Switzerland will receive a digital media player for his remix ‘Remix Culture II.’ Here’s what Total Recut Video had to say about the event: Those who submitted videos… more
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Knight Batten Awards for Innovation showcase public media innovators
Posted by Micael Bogar on Sep 12, 2008
On Wednesday July 10th at the National Press Club, in collaboration with J-Lab, the Knight Foundation presented eight awards for excellence in media innovation. Center for Social Media staffers were awed by the hard work, creativity and innovation of the winners. Wikiscanner, which won the top award of $10,000, was launched in 2007 and allows users to review edits made on Wikipedia. The information available on Wikiscanner is vast, but if you’re simply curious to check out the “most salacious edits” you can do that. Wikiscanner users who find strange edits are encouraged to write an article about it and… more
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Remixing the RNC
Posted by Alison Hanold on Sep 8, 2008
In June Stephen Colbert viewed McCain’s delivery of a speech in front of a green screen as a request for mashup artists and remixers to “make McCain exciting.” (A green screen for those of you less tech- savvy is a mashup-makers dream come true, allowing artists to add a backdrop of nearly anything they can dream up, or rather “mash up.”) The result was a collection of funny, poignant, and often critical videos drawing attention to how out of touch McCain is with online culture. It is no surprise then that remixers have risen to the challenge of remixing the… more
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A Peek Under the Hood of the NPR API
Posted by John Tynan on Aug 28, 2008
Public broadcasting is in a moment of experimentation, moving beyond traditional broadcast platforms and structures and trying to reach publics where they live and work, through issues that they care about. Large structural innovations—like the release of the NPR application programming interface (API) in late July—are combining with experimentation by stations, staffers and audiences to create new uses for public media content. An open API is a wonderful thing for making content public: it provides a simple way to query an online database and extract things from it for display. An open API allows anyone to access, reuse, and “mash… more
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“Let’s Go Crazy” lawsuit results in fair use victory
Posted by Alison Hanold on Aug 27, 2008
In the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video,a team of legal experts and media scholars judged the incidental use of copyrighted material to be an eligible form of fair use. It seems that the courts agree. In a recent lawsuit filed by Universal Music against a woman who posted a video of her child running around her house while the Prince song “Let’s Go Crazy” played in the background, a federal judge ruled that copyright owners should consider fair use before filing any copyright infringement complaints. Below is more from Wired.com: The 10-page decision (.pdf) came… more
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