think demux

Luke sent me a very informative link from Boing Boing yesterday. If you’re not in the habit of making video, you can skip this post.

I won’t pretend that Fair Use is riveting. But it’s something you need to understand if you want to sample material that isn’t your own.

This piece is available in full here and the Centre for Social Media has a lot more to help you get your head around Creative Commons law and Fair Use.

Why does any of this concern me? Well, it affects my VJing work, for one. I’ve not yet met a VJ who doesn’t use a single sample in their set. Neither have I met a VJ who’s entirely comfortable about their legal footing in doing so.

But a VJ should aspire to sample less and less as they develop. There’s a lot of insight in the book and DVD by D-Fuse and Michael Faulkner on this subject.

And whatever you’re doing, whether it’s original or sampled, it should be transformative. That’s the whole point.

I think reading up on Fair Use is an effective way to quality control your work and ensure you stand out from the YouTube mash-ups. I’d recommend it.