New Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education

The Center for Social Media has just released a document that helps educators who use media literacy concepts and techniques to interpret the copyright

picture-42.pngdoctrine of fair use. The document was created during 10 meetings with more than 150 members of leading educational associations across the United States, and follows in the footsteps of the Documentary Filmmakers Association who created guiding practices for their industry 3 years ago.

In the murky waters of what legally constitutes a fair use and what doesn’t, courts of law generally look to common industry practices. In the absence of such guiding documents, the courts must look to other other industries’ interpretations of fair use, or prior case law, which often themselves aren’t relevant or comparable. Interestingly, The Center for Social Media reports that they “don’t know of any lawsuit brought by an American media company against an educator over the use of media in the educational process”.

The Center defines Media Literacy in Education:

Media literacy is the capacity to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate messages in a wide variety of forms. This expanded conceptualization of literacy responds to the demands of cultural participation in the twenty-first century. Like literacy in general, media literacy includes both receptive and productive dimensions, encompassing critical analysis and communication skills, particularly in relationship to mass media, popular culture, and digital media. Like literacy in general, media literacy is applied in a wide variety of contexts—when watching television or reading newspapers, for example, or when posting commentary to a blog. Indeed, media literacy is implicated everywhere one encounters information and entertainment content. And like literacy in general, media literacy can be taught and learned.

Head on over to their website and to read more and download the code.

Hulu: Watch NBC online, Embed TV Shows on Your Blog or Myspace Page

Hulu came out of its private beta a week or two ago, and now anyone can access the site. As a private beta tester, I had been catching up with episodes of The Office ever since the series left iTunes, which I am still not happy about. I’d much rather watch these episodes on my iPhone during my commute, and the unfortunate part about Hulu is that it doesn’t offer TV shows for download. Instead, you are stuck watching them in streaming video on your computer complete with, yes, advertiser commercials.

However, the site’s layout and design is pretty user friendly, and the most ingenious aspect of Hulu (and the most fun) is that you can grab the embed code for an entire TV show, or even just a clip that you create, and embed it anywhere you want. Giving fans, viewers, and users the ability to do this without having to rip the content themselves is certainly a plus for most of us, and for NBC, who doesn’t want to see unauthorized, copyright protected clips on YouTube and elsewhere on the web. It appears that Hulu has decided not to fight the tide on this one. The commercials come with the clips when you embed them (a boon to Hulu and its advertisers), and when viewing one of their videos on a blog or elsewhere, double-clicking it brings you back to Hulu’s site (as in YouTube’s model). I’d highly prefer viewing without the commercials of this were ever a possibility, and I’d still like to see the ability to download entire episodes (without DRM) and remix the clips. Still, the functionality Hulu is providing its users is a step in the right direction.

Sadly I can’t get it to work here, but I’ve tried it elsewhere and it’s working in most places. Pretty cool!

picture-7.png

Two Big Media Holdouts Open Up

As a big fan of Web 2.0 and free and open access, I was excited today to see that two old-media holdouts, Sony BMG and the Wall Street Journal, took progressive steps toward rethinking their business models and opening up access to their content.

The WSJ announced today that it will open up free access to all of its editorials, op-eds, video interviews and commentary which were previously only viewable to paid subscription customers. No doubt this decision came, in part, from increased pressure and competition from the blogosphere. Although the Journal is not completely free yet, I am looking forward to accessing these free features and think the company will eventually discover what the NY Times did: although free, open access is clearly good for consumers, it is also good for business.

On the music front, Sony BMG, (Sony’s music division), announced today that it would finally rollout their music catalog without DRM, Digital Rights Management. Continue reading “Two Big Media Holdouts Open Up”