As the wealth-generating capacities of social networking become increasingly apparent, all sorts of companies are racing to cash in. Rupert Murdoch’s MySpace website is trying to leverage its huge network of 49 million users by offering to host the songs of amateur musicians. YouTube is giving a platform for aspiring video storytellers and comedians. Washingtonpost.com has even hosted a Video Mash-Up contest in which users insert video footage of people responding to reporter Dana Milbank’s interview questions. It’s all great fun to have open community platforms for amateur creativity and collaborative projects. But here’s the catch: the hosting companies are claiming ownership in the works that we create. If your work finds an audience, guess who owns the right to profit from it? Read the fine print of users’ agreements for the websites, and you will find that we are actually guests on someone else’s cultural estate. And you thought New Media was different from Old Media? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. |
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