Video Vortex Reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

146 Video Vortex Reader II Moving Images Beyond Youtubecollection case studies147Prelinger, Rick. ‘On the Virtues of Preexisting Material - A Manifesto’ Subject/Object, 9 November,2008. http://subjectobject.net/2008/11/09/on-the-virtues-of-preexisting-material-a-manifesto-byrick-prelinger/.Stalder, Felix. ‘Copyright Dungeons and Grey Zones’ nettime-l Digest, Vol. 7, Issue 10, 15 April, 2008.Terranova, Tiziana. Network Culture: Politics for the Information Age. London, Pluto Press, 2004.Ethical Presentation of IndigenousMedia in the Age of Open Video:Cultivating Collaboration, Sovereigntyand SustainabilityTeague Schneiter‘When we are ancestors, we will be a product of our actions’. 1We are in the midst of a pivotal moment for online video – the tools for creating and disseminatingvideo online are now prolific, and video sharing sites have encouraged an entire movementtowards user-generated content. Content, tools and platforms continue to proliferate,making the world of online video one of significant and ongoing change. A recent Nielsen reportreleased this year revealed that approximately 70% of global online consumers now watchonline video. 2 As video creation and video sharing become ubiquitous, the web has become abattlefield, with the constant conflict typically framed as a struggle for digital freedom againstdigital censorship. Online video has created an ecology of uncharted openness; punctuatedby the fact that it has become common for people to share and create videos without therelevant copyright permissions. Governments 3 and companies attempt to restrict informationand unchecked usage on the web, while independent organizations fight for freedom ofinformation, transparency and fair use. In an important victory for free culture advocates, theElectronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) this year won three exemptions to the Digital MillenniumCopyright Act (DMCA), effectively ‘carving out new legal protections for consumers who modifytheir cell phones and artists who remix videos – people who, until now, could have been suedfor their non-infringing or fair use activities’. 4 The workings of the net seem to require constantsparring between those in possession of distinctive ethical value-systems: proprietary vs. open1. Honiana Te Puni Love & Neavin Broughton, ‘Tuku Reo, Tuku Mouri: Information technologyin the strategic revitalisation of Te Reo Maori o Taranaki (Taranaki Maori dialect) in AotearoaNew Zealand’, Information Technologies and Indigenous Communities Symposium, AustralianInstitute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSI), Canberra, Australia, 2010.2. ‘How People Watch – A Global Nielsen Consumer Report’, Nielsen Wire blog, 4 August,2010. http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/global/report-how-we-watch-the-global-state-ofvideoconsumption/.3. According to the OpenNet Initiative’s website: ‘Drawing on arguments that are often powerfuland compelling such as “securing intellectual property rights,” “protecting national security,”“preserving cultural norms and religious values,” and “shielding children from pornography andexploitation,” many states are implementing extensive filtering practices to curb the perceivedlawlessness of the medium’, About Filtering, OpenNet Initiative, http://opennet.net/about-filtering.4. ‘EFF Wins New Legal Protections for Video Artists, Cell Phone Jailbreakers, and Unlockers:Rulemaking Fixes Critical DMCA Wrongs’, Electronic Frontier Foundation, 26 July, 2010, http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/07/26.