My 12-year-old son, Nathaniel has begun to make his own movies. Early on in the Full Sail University EMDT I began to use iMovie. I thought it had developed into a great program and that my son would enjoy making movies on it. Being that he is a digital native, he took to it like a fish to water. He began to make clips for his honors class, he made movies for his brothers, and then he began to post some movies on YouTube. As a protective parent this is where I began to worry a little, because I do not approve of everything that is on YouTube. However my son has acted very responsibly and I’m proud of the work is done. This brings us to my blog question. We have discussed copyright law and the fair use policies, however I am a little concerned on how that applies when someone makes a copy of a copy of someone else’s work.
Is it okay to take various clips from YouTube to create your own video? Under fair use policy since he is only using a few seconds of video to make another video then he should be fine. However since he is taking the clip from someone else’s small video clip the percentage he is taking from the clip is larger. I am not sure that I even can explain it clearly therefore I am including the video as part of my blog. I was going to make comments on it however I do not feel that would be fair to my son. I left the video as my son produced it. The video is a movie trailer competition, for “The Hunger Games” that will come out in 2012. The movie is based on a series of books that my son has read and enjoyed very much. My son has been watching other people’s trailers on YouTube and decided to create this one. Reading books and making videos is definitely better than getting the trouble and playing video games all day. I just want to make sure he is not breaking the law in the process. Enjoy
First off, what a beautiful use of diverse clips to tell an original story. That's the remix culture that Lessig mentions in his TED talk. Alas, under Fair Use unless the product is meant for news, critical comment, parody or education it is NOT Fair Use. One of those four purposes have to be addressed first before one can say if the clips use too much of the original works. It's squarely in the grey area between copyright infringement and re-imagining and resampling media for a completely different work. This should be fair use because it is not stealing from the original but using the original like one might use Legos to building something very different from what the creators intended. Very moving video and another reason that the law must be changed.
ReplyDeleteHi Rick-
ReplyDeleteI think this is a great example of fair use. There is such a gray area here and the work your son created is original enough to tell a new story through images. I like the analogy of Legos, each user/creator can have come up with a variety of original work from the same pieces.
Great video!
Thanks for sharing,
Sabrina