Video Vortex Reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

218 Video Vortex Reader II Moving Images Beyond Youtubetechnological approaches219ReferencesAnderson, Chris. ‘The Long Tail’, Wired, October 2004, http://www.mediamaxscript.com/Video-Hosting-Script.boyd, danah. ‘Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace’, Apophenia BlogEssay, 24 June, 2007, http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html.Cubitt, Sean. ‘Codecs and Capability’ in Geert Lovink and Sabine Niederer (eds) Video Vortex Reader:Responses to YouTube, Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2008.Depocas, Alain, Jon Ippolito and Caitlin Jones (eds) Permanence Through Change: The VariableMedia Approach, The Guggenheim Museum and The Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science& Technology, 2003.Ito, Mizuko. ‘The rewards of non-commercial production: Distinctions and status in the anime musicvideo scene’, First Monday 15.5 (2010), http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2968/2528.Jenkins, Henry. ‘Nine Propositions Towards a Cultural Theory of YouTube’, Henry Jenkins Weblog, 28May, 2007, http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/05/9_propositions_towards_a_cultu.html.McGarry, Kevin. Medium Quality: The 2010 International Experimental Media Congress, 21 April,2010. http://rhizome.org/editorial/3478.Pettinato, Isabel. ‘Viral Candy’, in Olia Lialina and Dragan Espenschied (eds) Digital Folklore Reader,Stuttgart: Merz & Solitude, 2009.Shirky, Clay. ‘Private, Public, and the Collapse of the Personal’, in Lauren Cornell, Massimiliano Gioni.Laura Hoptman (eds) Younger Than Jesus: The Reader. New York: Steidl & Partners, 2009.–––––. Here Comes Everybody:The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, New York: PenguinPress, 2008.Blocking, Tracking, and Monetizing:YouTube Copyright Control and theDownfall ParodiesAndrew ClayAs a media corporation, YouTube has a legal obligation to reassure other media corporationsthat it is doing everything it can to uphold copyright law, in the face of the infringement ofYouTube users. When users remix commercial media content they are potentially contraveningthe company’s terms and conditions and blackening YouTube’s reputation as a securesite to do business. YouTube’s Content ID system attempts to ‘keep everybody happy’ byfacilitating the blocking, tracking, and monetizing of commercial assets uploaded by userswho do not own the rights to them. For instance, Sony monetized the unauthorized use ofa song by Chris Brown on the very popular user-generated ‘JK Wedding Entrance Dance’video. In this case, Sony was a spectacular winner, but the system as a whole favours therights-holder and dismisses the commercial rights of the remixer who has added value to theproduct through their creativity. Other examples of online video remix culture, such as theDownfall parodies, demonstrate how YouTube’s system can break down. YouTube is part ofa culture in which mediation is intensified, and in which people are encouraged to transformthemselves into media. Not only can the culture of sharing be at odds with the culture of commercialismwith which it attempts to engage, it can illustrate some of the important limitationsof our ability to experience the world authentically and to pay sufficient attention to the forcesof consumerism.YouTube Content ID and the ‘JK Wedding Entrance Dance’ VideoIn March 2007, Viacom filed a one billion dollar lawsuit against YouTube, alleging direct andindirect infringement of copyright. The latest ruling, in June 2010, went in YouTube’s favour,with the judgement suggesting that the burden of responsibility for policing and monitoringcopyright lies with the copyright holder. YouTube was judged to be immune from claims ofcopyright infringement by corporations such as Viacom under the ‘safe harbor’ provision ofthe 1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), by virtue of its implementation of compliant‘notice and takedown’ procedures. YouTube has been able to demonstrate that it operateslegally, by responding promptly to official claims of infringement by removing or disablingthe audio on videos. However, this does not mean that YouTube is passive or neutral concerningcopyright infringement, or that its actions are without controversy. Whereas YouTubesees itself operating ‘a creative ecosystem where everybody wins’, 1 ‘free culture’ advocateLawrence Lessig terms this a ‘perverse system’. 21. Mary Gould Stewart, ‘How YouTube Thinks About Copyright’, http://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_stewart_how_youtube_thinks_about_copyright.html.2. Lawrence Lessig, ‘Re-examining the Remix’, at http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/lessig_nyed.html.