Fair Use in Online Video

BoingBoing.net posted a great feature yesterday about a new project by the American University Center for Social Media to define a Code of Best Practices in Fair Use in Online Video. They rounded up a panel of legal and communications experts, and created a short and very instructive video detailing the protections that Fair Use Doctrine affords to content creators who remix, mash up, "quote" from, or otherwise use content to which someone else holds the copyright.    

Fair use is a fascinating topic, made all the more confusing and pertinent in the realm of online media. An especially famous - and quite amusing - case is that of Tom Forsythe, whose photography featuring Barbie dolls landed him in hot water with Mattel. More recently, Fair Use has been in the news with the Associated Press seeking damages from Shepherd Fairey for using a photograph as the basis/inspiration for his iconic Barack Obama campaign posters (Here's a compelling take on that case).

Now that the technology to rip, rearrange, and incorporate a multitude of sources into one's own digital media creations is fairly cheap and basically ubiquitous, Fair Use is sure to continue to be a hot button issue, and the Center for Social Media has provided a valuable public service. Check out the video, I promise it will be roughly 7 minutes well spent.