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Some Thoughts on New Media CopyrightMay 18th, 2008 at 3:30 pmSource:CenterNetworks Ok, so after posting my bitchy rant about people stealing my videos and watching the fallout, I’ve decided a few things about how Internet friends should use and share content. First of all, any blogger has to be grateful that her content is compelling enough that others want to share it. It’s awesome to be part of the big conversation known as the Internet, and having a share of that voice is an intensely powerful experience. Life-changing, for many. Traditionally speaking, any content I create belongs to me, and I am the only one who has the right to publish it. That’s from freshman year media law back in, like, 2000. And although it still applies online, it doesn’t really work, does it? Copyright exists for a lot of reasons, most of them involving or related to money. However, ways of measuring money online are vastly different from ways of measuring money in traditional media. Site traffic, diggs, retweets, and dofollow backlinks are all part of the new currency. So, suppose a video of mine pops up elsewhere; how am I getting paid? The views alone count for something, I rather think. A link back to my site? That’s awesome, too. Drop my name in the tag and surrounding copy, and we’re gold. If none of those things happen, however, somebody’s got to fix the sitch. A bitchy video and a cease and desist letter are not how I prefer to handle my Web issues, but what else is a blogger to do? Another important aspect of traditional media copyright law is permission. With permission, even if no one’s getting paid, you can do just about anything with content. ‘Member the Woody Allen/American Apparel debacle? Dudes, if they’d simply gotten permission, they could’ve Photoshopped a dildo to his forehead and run the ad at a porn convention in Cuba. Seriously. Sans permission, it’s lawsuit time. However, the shareability of online content makes ganking text, pics, and videos so fluid and simple that permission is a total afterthought most of the time. I’ve ganked, you’ve ganked… Anyone who’s written a college paper has ganked content from someone who’s either smarter, cooler, or less lazy. Most of the time, no one gets caught, so no one gets hurt. Asking for permission is scary. “It’s better to ask forgiveness than permission” is a popular glibism for a reason. No one likes risking rejection; and if rejection means you have to create your own content with your own time, money, mental effort, etc., ganking seems much simpler. So, here we have a big, contradictory mess: Traditional copyright law requiring permission and (usually) payment for use of content is a nightmare when applied to the Internet. The Creative Commons folks make the excellent point that sharing and reusing content should be fairly simple and usually free, considering that the creative economy is often more about share-of-voice than U.S. dollars. They ask content creators to state expectations at the outset with a set of icons symbolizing whether or not the creator wants the content to be used commercially, whether he requires to be credited, whether the content can be altered or remixed, etc. That’s awesome. But I, personally, am scared to release all my traditional copyright for my online content, as are many others. Here’s a thought: Why not have a page or section on your site stating exactly what you expect when people want to share your content? Me, I’m cool with any kind of sharing as long as you contact me first and link back to me. There we have both permission and payment in Internet currency, satisfying me as a creator and copyright law, as well. I’m going to go make that page right now. You should, too. Let’s keep it simple and friendly, dudes! After all, the Internet was created so that people could watch free pr0n, not sue one another over ganked content. Jolie O’Dell blogs, vlogs, tweets, and runs RAMPAGE, a new media ad agency. Partner Links
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