Page 555 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

| User-Created Content and Aud ence Part c pat on

down. They see these uses as unauthorized, violating copyright laws that bestow
the right to profit from creative endeavors on the original creator. Where the
title of a property may be registered as a trademark, copyright owners have also
used trademark law to have works removed. These actions are seen as neces-
sary to protect both the commercial investment in the creative property, which
in many cases is substantial, and to reduce potential confusion over what is,
and what is not, an official product. This latter concern has been heightened by
the increasing quality of amateur productions. Fan film Star Wars: Revelations
(available at http://panicstruckpro.com/revelations), for instance, sports CGI ef-
fects almost as impressive as the official Star Wars films, despite being produced
on a fraction of the budget.
An alternative perspective sees this re-use of commercially produced media
as noninfringing and legitimate in an age of digital content and productive audi-
ences. Lawrence Lessig argues that people have long remixed their culture through
activities such as quoting favorite lines or using television episodes as the basis
for jokes. Technology has finally caught up with this practice to enable this re-
mixing to make use of the content itself. Similarly, Henry Jenkins suggests that
user creativity represents a similar range of behaviors traditionally understood
as folk culture—culture produced outside of the commercial realm.
Seeking to capitalize on creative audiences, some media producers have in-
vited audiences to remix their content. A number of musicians have released
tracks expressly inviting audiences to remix them. In a promotion for director
Richard Linklater’s 2006 film A Scanner Darkly, permission was given for the
trailer to be re-edited using online video site JumpCut. Similarly, in early 2007
the SciFi Network made audio and video clips of Battlestar Galactica available
for download, encouraging users to mashup the clips with their own content
and send the clips back to the network where a prize will be awarded for the best
video.

mEaning
In addition to questions about the right to use content, user creativity has
raised questions about the meanings cultural goods have. Policing unauthorized
uses of commercial content is a process that aims to ensure copyright owners
are in charge of how these goods are represented. Permitting productive audi-
ences to use copyright material exposes copyright owners to risks that their con-
tent will be used for purposes they may not have anticipated and may not agree
with. While some have no qualms about this—indeed the Creative Commons
licensing system was developed with permitting re-use in mind—others are par-
ticularly wary.
A similar competition, conducted by General Motors for their Chevy Tahoe
SUV in March 2006, provided users with music and video of the Tahoe and
invited them to make an ad for the brand. Some of the entries Chevy received
back were highly critical of the car, poking fun at Chevy drivers and criticiz-
ing the motoring industry. In a somewhat surprising decision, Chevy decided
to allow these entries to remain on the competition site, along with the more