Discussion Case: Vidding—Free Expression or Copyright Piracy “It’s on the Internet, publically available, so it must be free to be used.” “It is simply a way for me to express myself.” “It is totally different than what they created, it is mine now.” And so go the arguments to justify, ethically or legally, the increasing practice of vidding among young and old alike. This issue was so controversial that National Pub- lic Radio aired a one-hour feature on its show All Things Considered on February 25, 2009, to bring the differing opinions on vidding to light. Vidding is the practice of creating new videos, sometimes called songvids or fanvids, which takes existing clips, usually from popular television shows, anime series, or music videos, and blends them with a song. It is a mix of narrative story telling and visual poetry. These new forms of entertainment or self-expression can be transferred to dif- ferent formats and made accessible on the computer and the Internet. While blossom- ing at a rapid pace, vidding raises serious ethical and legal questions regarding copyright protection versus free speech. The first songvid is attributed to Kathy Fong, who at a Star Trek convention in 1975 showed a slide show of Leonard Nimoy (Dr. Spock on Star Trek, who often repressed his half-human side) singing a Joni Mitchell song. Fong said that she wanted to show Spock’s dual nature. More recently, vids often compile dozens of clips from various episodes of a television show or movie set to music. The band Good Charlotte, for example, edited gritty crime scenes from CSI: New York with their own mournful songover, saying they wanted to show the dangers faced by police on the show. Some argue that vidding is really just free expression. “The media seem to think they own the things they’ve pumped into my brain in 27 years,” said British vidder Lim. “It seems to me ludicrous that television spends so much time and so much money care- fully colonizing my mind. But it is my mind.” “Vidding is a way of seeing,” explained vidder Francesca Coppa, who is a professor at Muhlenberg College and author of scholarly papers about vids. “This is our place to talk [referring to the Internet],” said Coppa. She believes that YouTube serves as a public square for opinions and conversation in this technologically wired world. Georgetown University law professor Rebecca Tushnet, also an occasional vidder, agrees: “Viddeers should not be treated like pirates. They’re people responding to culture in noncommercial ways.” Yet, the space and material being used for vids is owned, raising serious legal ques- tions concerning intellectual property. Like people who download music without paying a fee to those that created the music and hold the copyright, vidders are using material owned by others without compensating them for their intellectual property. However, Henry Jenkins, a leading academic in popular culture studies and author, argues that while vidding does use previously c.

1. Discussion Case: Vidding—Free Expression or Copyright Piracy
“It’s on the Internet, publically available, so it must be free to
be used.” “It is simply a way for me to express myself.” “It is
totally different than what they created, it is mine now.” And so
go the arguments to justify, ethically or legally, the increasing
practice of vidding among young and old alike. This issue was
so controversial that National Pub- lic Radio aired a one-hour
feature on its show All Things Considered on February 25,
2009, to bring the differing opinions on vidding to light.
Vidding is the practice of creating new videos, sometimes
called songvids or fanvids, which takes existing clips, usually
from popular television shows, anime series, or music videos,
and blends them with a song. It is a mix of narrative story
telling and visual poetry. These new forms of entertainment or
self-expression can be transferred to dif- ferent formats and
made accessible on the computer and the Internet. While
blossom- ing at a rapid pace, vidding raises serious ethical and
legal questions regarding copyright protection versus free
speech.
The first songvid is attributed to Kathy Fong, who at a Star Trek
convention in 1975 showed a slide show of Leonard Nimoy (Dr.
Spock on Star Trek, who often repressed his half-human side)
singing a Joni Mitchell song. Fong said that she wanted to show
Spock’s dual nature. More recently, vids often compile dozens
of clips from various episodes of a television show or movie set
to music. The band Good Charlotte, for example, edited gritty
crime scenes from CSI: New York with their own mournful
songover, saying they wanted to show the dangers faced by
police on the show.
Some argue that vidding is really just free expression. “The
media seem to think they own the things they’ve pumped into
my brain in 27 years,” said British vidder Lim. “It seems to me
ludicrous that television spends so much time and so much

2. money care- fully colonizing my mind. But it is my mind.”
“Vidding is a way of seeing,” explained vidder Francesca
Coppa, who is a professor at Muhlenberg College and author of
scholarly papers about vids. “This is our place to talk [referring
to the Internet],” said Coppa. She believes that YouTube serves
as a public square for opinions and conversation in this
technologically wired world. Georgetown University law
professor Rebecca Tushnet, also an occasional vidder, agrees:
“Viddeers should not be treated like pirates. They’re people
responding to culture in noncommercial ways.”
Yet, the space and material being used for vids is owned,
raising serious legal ques- tions concerning intellectual
property. Like people who download music without paying a fee
to those that created the music and hold the copyright, vidders
are using material owned by others without compensating them
for their intellectual property. However, Henry Jenkins, a
leading academic in popular culture studies and author, argues
that while vidding does use previously copyrighted material, it
does so in a way that would hardly be recognized by the
original artists. Vidders “are not simply trying to recover what
the original producers meant. They are trying to entertain
hypotheticals, address what-if questions, and propose
alternative realities.” Since only small snippets of video images
are used and no profit is made, some vidders and lawyers argue
that vidding should fall under the Fair Use exception to
copyright laws.
Nevertheless, vidders’ use of copyrighted material, such as clips
from television scenes or movies and copyrighted music,
appears to be in violation of the law. Web sites, such as
YouTube, caution against the uploading of copyrighted
material, even though thou- sands of vids have been uploaded
there. As a matter of policy, YouTube will remove ille- gal
material, such as vids containing unapproved copyrighted
material, if informed of the violation of copyright laws.
Others wonder if vidders (or lawyers for that matter) would be
so tolerant if they dis- covered vids contained their own original

3. (and copyrighted) work or images but pre- sented in an
unflattering way. Just as musical artists believe that their work
and creativ- ity should earn them royalties, so do the creators of
television clips or video images. In addition, beyond
expressions of creativity, vids can be used as propaganda or in
ways that may be viewed as slanderous or in bad taste. People
whose images are used in these objectionable vids may want to
seek legal recourse. These ethical and legal issues have become
more prominent as vids have proliferated on the Internet.
Sources: “Vidders Talk Back to Their Pop-Culture Muses,”
National Public Radio, May 30, 2009, www.npr.org; “Best
Practices in Fair Use in Online Video,” Center for Social
Media, www.centerforsocialmedia.org; and “Remixing
Television: Francesca Coppa on the Vidding Underground,”
Reason Magazine, August/September 2008, www.reason.com