Re: animal charm

Hi Jim-

Thanks for all the great feedback. I checked your site and respect your
old-school credentials. Good stuff. What new projects are you working
on? Would you and/or Rich be interested in helping out as a guest
blogger? Let me know and I'll send you the guidelines for posting.

I think I understand your concerns about how I chose to position "Media
trips". I see it like this. I am a "fair use" activist. My primary
goal is to let people know about their RIGHTS. And, in no uncertain
terms, you have the right to rip and remix copyrighted content. There
are restrictions but the RIGHTS are there. And remember, criminal
"copyright infringement" charges against mashers is quite rare.

See:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/index.html

Jim Fetterley wrote:

> The times are dangerous and definitions can often be inadequate to lay
> out a framework for what mediatrips is dangerously representing.
> Media representation is what we're talking about here in this
> particular context of literacy, and there are traps to fall into that
> mimic the very systems meditrips seems to deconstructing.

When I read statements like this I often think of documentary filmmaker
and author Michael Rabiger. He writes of mediated truth, "Only the
audience and the audience's knowledge of life can determine if a film is
'truthful'."

> The intent of mediatrips to casually represent these moments in a blog
> form has made me rethink some of the language and definition problems
> that arise in creating an expository collage like mediatrips. It
> makes me think that it is not the radical content of these cultural
> practices that is most threatening, but rather the formal presentation
> and distribution models that seem to be putting current outdated
> market forces on their heads.

I chose simple or "casual" language becasue I want to take some of the
"activist" mentality out of media-mashing. In some ways, I want to
relax the issue … to encourage people to remix as a means of personal
expression and not as an act of civil disobedience. I encourage
personal creativity not political activism.

>
> Your reference to "Popculture content"seems to exclude those cultural
> producers whose recombinant sources are born out of data mining what
> falls out of the vague definition of "any audio, video, image or text
> produced by the world's major media and entertainment corporations."


I chose language like "popculture content" for its simplicity. I'm
trying to show that media-mashing is both legal and relatively easy.

>
> Who knows, maybe I'll just cc this to the animalcharm email list to
> see what discussions come of it.

Yes, please do. I will do the same on my lists. And feel free to post
my reply.


david goldschmidt
san francisco
www.mediatrips.com
[email protected]