Are we living in a recycled world?
The Viacom/YouTube lawsuit got me thinking about creativity. People like YouTube because they can see funny, interesting, weird, or creative things that they would not otherwise be able to see. They also like it because they can show off their own funny, interesting, weird, or creative creations.
The gist of the complaints from Viacom and others against YouTube is that people are posting material to which they do not either own the copyright or have permission to use the material. In other words, people are not actually being creative on YouTube, they’re just recycling other people’s creativity.
I disagree with that. My experience with YouTube, garnered mostly through looking over my daughters’ shoulders as they happily collect videos on their interest of the day, has been that people are exceptionally creative, albeit sometimes with other people’s material.
Self made music videos like this one, with clips of movies or tv shows and set to popular music, are common on YouTube.
YouTube, to me, is the natural evolution of folk art. Folk art is art produced by the average, common person, usually reflecting the culture of the “folk.” The culture of American society is pop culture - the things produced commercially. So the offerings on YouTube fit the definition of folk art perfectly. The common person is able to take the music, television, movie and celebrity icons of our pop culture and turn them into new art. What people are doing on YouTube is much more than recycling the work of others.
But it’s still copyright infringement much of the time.
April 3rd, 2007 at 2:37 pm
There is definitely a lot of copyright theft on YouTube but I agree that most videos are people using this material in a creative way and should be applauded rather than condemned.