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Fair Use and Copyright Law

Posted on February 12, 2013 by | Comments Off on Fair Use and Copyright Law

@MyDtcAccount – Jonathan Crabtree

Fair use and copyright laws protect the owners of original content, but, sometimes, they also strangle out creativity from other people. Many people have to be very careful when working with original pieces of…well, just about anything. In the “Star Wars Saga” video, the creator used many different clips of star wars film and played them along with a techno song. Honestly, the result was not very well done, in my opinion. The clips jumped all over the place from movie to movie, and there was no story told. That said, the reason the author didn’t place them in chronological order is probably because, if he did, he could be violating the fair use laws by recreating an idea. Fair use laws protect the owner, but hurt future creators.

 

The star wars fan film is a little different. It doesn’t take any actual footage from the movies, but it is obviously taking the ideas behind the series. Having a jedi, a Darth Maul look-alike, and going after “the force” would, I think, violate copyright laws. Copyrights don’t only protect against the actual physical material, but it protects ideas and concepts from being copied, which is exactly what happened. It is ultimately up to the federal courts to decide whether or not it was a violation, but I really don’t see how it couldn’t be one. If an individual has seen star wars, they immediately can tell that that is what the fan film is referencing, which, if you can do that, it’s probably a copyright violation.

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Star Wars

Posted on February 12, 2013 by | Comments Off on Star Wars

@KatieGullans

I think that both the videos added something to the Star Wars series for fans to enjoy. I don’t think most people have an issue with it, watching it that has to deal with copyright because they’re likely to know the original source anyways. The Star Wars Saga uses  short clips a music remix. There isn’t any talking and it doesn’t show the whole saga. It shows parts created for a fan of Star Wars to enjoy. They made some effort to organize the music and the clips to call that video their idea.

The Star Wars fan film is a parody of Star Wars and Mountain Dew. Since it’s not using exact scenes from the movie, it can be considered a new creation. There are some commercials made for humor where they put in ideas from films. We should allow people to create parodies because it can give them a start in creating something. Something copyrighted would be like copying and pasting information. To create an essay, you usually have to do research. You can’t write down the exact information you find. You have to write it in your own words, then explain your thoughts. But you’re still almost always going to use ideas from other people, but expand on them or rotate them in a different angle that no one else thought of. Any idea you can expand on or create new adds something to the human experience. It can add humour, creativity, inspiration, learning, and many other things.

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blog 5

Posted on February 12, 2013 by | Comments Off on blog 5

@Samai14

I think both videos may or may not be legal in terms of Fair Use and U.S. copyright laws. Both videos give credit to the original name “star wars” on their video titles. The presentations and message are different from each other.  The star wars saga is just scenes from the original movie but with different background music than the real star wars theme song. Even though they use some scenes from the original movie it may not be legal because the U.S. copyright office states “copyrightable works include the following categories:  motion pictures and other audiovisual works”.  The other video is just trying to advertise Mt.Dew.  Although the same characters are in both videos they have different physical appearance. These videos may not be legal because the U.S. copyright office states “Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, a new version of that work.” This is basically saying that no matter how much you change you need to ask for the owner’s permission in order to make those changes.  These videos are tricky to explain if they are legal or not.

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Star Wars: Copyright and Fair Use

Posted on February 12, 2013 by | Comments Off on Star Wars: Copyright and Fair Use

@RachaelS_dtc

The two videos of Star Wars are examples of being able to use copyrighted materials legally through Fair Use. Fair Use for copyrighted material can be used for criticism, teaching, comment, news, research and parody. To remain within the Copyright law, the material used is limited and  cannot have “an effect on the copyrighted work” (Copyright). Copyright laws “assure authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas” (Lethem). I believe both videos from Youtube are within the U.S. Copyright laws. The first video, “Star Wars Fan Film,” is a fan-made film with similar ideas of the original storyline. The Jedi is defending something important (the Essence of the Force) from evil and fights with the Force and light sabers. This video is a parody because the Essence of the Force is a soft drink, Mountain Dew. The second video, “Star Wars Saga (The Best Trance Remix Montage),” includes multiple parts of the six Star Wars movies with a music remix in the background. The sound from the movies are not used, instead the Star Wars theme song has been remixed. This song is recognizable, but it has enough changes to make the remix an original. Also, I believe the footage used from the movies is short enough to not be plagiarized. This video can be seen as educational because it reveals important events throughout the Star Wars Saga. Although I see these video to be legal under Copyright laws, the Federal courts can disagree since they decide what is “fair.” I see these videos as harmless and will not affect the market value of the original work.

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Fair Use and Copyright Laws

Posted on February 12, 2013 by | Comments Off on Fair Use and Copyright Laws

@CailinJohnson

The Fair Use law states that you can copy or use a limited amount of a work without the permission of the copyright holder. However copyright law states that there needs to be a legal agreement about who can duplicate content. However with copyright law there is a public domain so after so many years that work because open to public use.

What is fair use and what is copyright has come under scrutiny because so many consumers have become producers and believe works should be available for public use.

All of the videos seem like they would be legal under the fair use laws. Each video is taking a little bit or piece of a work and tweaking it to make it their own. Such as the Disney Taxi cab, the producer of this video used animation and clips of Disney cartoons but did not use the whole cartoon in his film. Also the musician girl talk is taking bits and pieces of songs and changing them and making them different enough that they are no longer the same song.

The video that seems like it would be the most controversial to me is the Star Wars Fan Film: The Essence of the Force. This video is taking not just a little bit of the Star Wars theme but the whole video up until the end is the basic storyline of Star Wars complete with light sabers and costumes.  This video follows the original Star Wars so closely it could be sued under copyright laws.

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Copyright and Fair Use

Posted on February 11, 2013 by | Comments Off on Copyright and Fair Use

@PerrinKyla

Copyright and fair use laws can be interpreted in many different ways, but it is ultimately up to the federal court to decide what is and isn’t a copyrighted production and what is a fare use production. In the first Star Wars video, “Star Wars Fan Film – Essence of the Force,” it seems like it is suppose to be a Mountain Dew commercial. I would argue that the clips from the Star Wars movies are fair use because it could be said that all the clips transform it into a parody of the Star Wars movies. However, it is said that even parodies have been sued in a federal court for infringement. There is also a question in this video of whether or not this is a real commercial or video of Mountain Dew. It says at the end of the video that the video is copyrighted but it doesn’t say what corporation copyrighted it. In the second video “Star Wars Saga (The Best Trance Remix Montage),” it is similar in the terms of being considered under fair use, but the only big difference is the music. There is a question in this video of whether or not the music is original, or if the maker of this video just took the music from somewhere else and put it to this video. In my opinion it seems that no matter what someone creates it can always be seen as plagiarized. “All ideas are secondhand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and used daily…” (Jonathan Lethem pg.68).

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Remediation and News Broadcasts of 1990 and 2008

Posted on February 6, 2013 by | Comments Off on Remediation and News Broadcasts of 1990 and 2008

RachaelS_dtc

By comparing the multimedia texts, there is evidence of remediation. Remediation, by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin’s definition,  is using older technology and incorporating it into newer technology. This is evident in the two news broadcasts from 1990 and 2008. In the first news broadcast, there is very little computer animation. The only animation that is used it to transition between stories and have a graphic behind the speaker. In the second news broadcast there are animations on the bottom of the screen. Text scrolls across the screen full of information of multiple news stories. The “computer animation can function like film” (Remediation 70), since they are in constant motion. This broadcast is very similar to USA Today which has a “layout [that] resembles a multimedia computer application more that it does a television broadcast” (Remediation 76). This major difference between the broadcasts shows remediation because the news is still presented, but in a different way. The first broadcast has elements that are still used in the second broadcast such as presenting stories by the anchor and a graphic behind them. Now, the news has advanced to be more interactive and allow listen to multiple stories at once. News can also allow you to connect through the internet because news anchors have Twitter accounts and news channels have websites. This advanced media can only happen through remediation because the older ideas and technology is added on to become more advanced. Remediation allows new ideas to build off old ideas. This is true in the news broadcast where the original presentation of the news is added with text scrolling at the bottom of the screen and more graphics throughout the stories.

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Remediation in the News

Posted on February 5, 2013 by | Comments Off on Remediation in the News

@TannerSturza

In the article they define that “we call the representation of one medium in another “remediation,” and we will argue that remediation is a defining characteristic of the new digital media” (page 78).  With the news broadcast from ABC World News being 18 older than the Broadcast about Oprah, there must be some remediation of the old technology. You can see that both videos are similar, but the newer one has noticeable new technology that was used to create the broadcast. The ABC World News video is fairly simply, just videos with not a lot on the screen. But the Oprah video has several different things that are happening on the screen. At the bottom of the screen there are headlines that are constantly changing. Also, they have three different people that are in three different locations on the screen at the same time having a conversation with each other. The concept of remediation shows that they are using the same style of video to present the news, but it has been influenced by the new technology to deliver a very different news broadcast. It is also mentioned that “the viewer stands in the same relationship to the content as she would if she were confronting the original medium” (page 79). Both videos are presenting the news and the viewer is still being informed, the only difference is that the new technology has made it so the the viewer receives the information a little differently.

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Remediation

Posted on February 5, 2013 by | Comments Off on Remediation

The way news is broadcasted on television has changed a lot since the early 90’s.  The 1990 ABC World news clip had a much more simple and straightforward manner to it, whereas the 2008 broadcast was busy and multifaceted.  On a visual level, the ABC video was toned down with a single view, the news anchor presents himself warmly so as to give the viewer a sense of personal connection.  In the second video, there are several camera views and those speaking are doing so in a way that feels detached.  The television screen is also covered in other information and or news.  The significant increase in activity and information gave me anxiety as it makes you feel like you need to hurry up and grab every bit of information you see.  Also, the dialog is more superficial in context and brief in delivery.

 

Bolter and Grusin noted “television news programs also show the influence of the graphical user interface when they divide the screen into tow or more frames and place text and numbers over and around the framed video images” (p.189).  I thought the example of what visually holds the viewers interest when looking at modern art was an interesting comparison.  While a work of art is compositionally created with the intent of keeping the eye interested, the news interface has the opposite effect on me.  It is too much information in my opinion and I find myself tuning it out completely.

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blog 4

Posted on February 5, 2013 by | Comments Off on blog 4

@samai 14

I noticed many differences between ABC world news and Oprah.  Some of the most obvious differences between them were the colors .They were too boring and not as bright as Oprah. Other obvious differences are the music, commercials, appearance, and speech. The way Peter Jennings spoke to the audience was different. His way of speech, his tone it was just different than the Oprah. The ways the commercials are presented are different. For example talking on the phone while driving is not okay anymore and in one of the ABC commercials they were advertising at&t using card and we don’t see that anymore. We also don’t see those cars or huge phones/cellphones.  Moving on to the technology part on Oprah there’s a lot of screen changing, 3 different people from different places fit in one screen and they’re live and they ask for the public’s opinion by sending an email. I don’t see any of this on the ABC world news. I just feel like news is more realistic now than before. Bolter and Grusin say “in order to create a sense of presence, virtual reality should come as close as possible to our daily visual experience. Its graphic space should be continuous and full of objects and should fill the viewer’s field of vision without rupture.” (p. 67) one last thing I noticed that has nothing to do with technology or new media is that they both talk about a certain race. I feel like ABC sees and treats “blacks” as they refer to them as minorities but on Oprah they have power and are wealthy.

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