Friday 28 September 2012

Copyright and power

The readings and viewings for #oped12 on openness in education Week 3 get you thinking.
After watching the excellent RiP: the Remix Manifesto by Laurent LaSalle, I turned to G+ and found a What's Hot item. Except I could not see it. I saw this instead:

Samuel L. Jackson's WTFU campaign for Obama had been taken down due to a copyright claim by JCER. Could this be the Jewish Council for Education and Research, the same group that produced the advert? Don't know.
But why are they objecting to a showing of their advertisement? Surely that is the point of an advert - getting maximum air time.
There are other places to see it, of course.
The Remix Manifesto and Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture (another viewing for the course - free as in free-up, or no cost, but not OPEN, a more recent term, perhaps), are thought-provoking. The early Walt Disney mash-ups done in true open style, when contrasted with the demonic protection of that same Disney material later, illustrate so well the use of commercial power. This power has stifled creativity and affected random individuals in a way totally disproportionate to the individual harm done. And the strong arm tactic of governments is felt throughout the world on this issue.

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