Tuesday, July 17, 2007

A FIRST STEP... BACKWARDS: With all the 1776-related saltpeter last week, we neglected to note that Larry Lessig had an an article on Thursday in the Washington Post (sub. req.) addressing George Lucas "innovative" plan to open some of the Star Wars content to mixing and mashing. Reading the derivative content provisions of the Star Wars Galaxies EULA a few years ago made me wonder if a blog posts about the game wouldn't arguably become Lucas' property. This "plan" for the films is apparently similarly sweeping. The gist of it:
Upload a remix and George Lucas, and only Lucas, is free to include it on his Web site or in his next movie, with no compensation to the creator. You are not even permitted to post it on YouTube. Upload a particularly good image as part of your remix, and Lucas is free to use it commercially with no compensation to the creator. The remixer is allowed to work, but the product of his work is not his. Put in terms appropriately (for Hollywood) over the top: The remixer becomes the sharecropper of the digital age.
From WaPo.

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