To understand what’s at the crux of the $1 billion Viacom suit against Google for copyright infringement, look no further than the guy who has become the flash point for the suit, Stephen Colbert. Colbert spent Monday’s episode giving a platform to the debate of copyright law and fair use that is embodied by the current collision of old media content owners versus new media technologies that enable the mashing up of that content.The Colbert Report has been at the crux of the Viacom-YouTube/Google suit since Viacom first sued and highlighted the fact that copyrighted episodes of the The Colbert Report were freely available on YouTube. The Electronic Freedom Foundation then sued Viacom over YouTube’s takedown of a Colbert parody produced by MoveOn.org and Brave New Films.
On Monday’s episode, Colbert mapped out the players with skin in the game with his guest, John Perry Barlow of the EFF. Here’s an extrapolation of what he whiteboarded for the audience:
Colbert was at his subversive best as he gave platform to the EFF’s suit against Viacom and their interpretation that a parody of a parody is fair use of The Colbert Show. While he is clearly beholden to Viacom, (”they own me, baby… I am their bitch”), by giving a platform to the EFF he is emboldening the enemy of his parent company.
Watch the clip right here (via ColbertNation.com, not YouTube) to see Colbert lay it all out:
Colbert clearly “gets” what is going on with mashup culture and that value is added by allowing the market to remix and remake content that he is creating. And all of this casts a reflective glow back to his show. To showcase his point he announced the Stephen Colbert:For Your Editing Pleasure contest, encouraging views to download footage of his mock interview with PBS’s Gwen Ifill. Viewers are encouraged to edit the footage to make Colbert appear in as unflattering a light as possible and resubmit it to the show. Through this contest he is showcasing that creativity that can be unleashed when content is freely distributed, and how smart copyright owners are encouraging the remixing of their content facilitating deeper connections with their audiences.
[...] So someone over at Voodoo Ventures has plugged this post in multiple comments in my blog, which normally I frown upon except this post is really, really good. It’s got links and a really nifty chart and whatnot. So if you want to see a really great break down of the information spewed by Colbert on Monday night’s episode, check out this post in its entirety over at VoodooVentures.com. Stephen Colbert Groks the Viacom v. Google Suit March 28, 2007 3:22 pm written by Chris Schultz [...]
I blogged about this entry on my site - http://www.nofactzone.net/?p=1242. I included your graph, but hosted it on Flickr and a click on the pic takes you back to this post.
Ok, you win blogger of the year for the graphic alone. bk
Wow, what a graph! Interesting scheme indeed)
This was a fun challenge! Here’s my version of editing Stephen Colbert.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSx58ZhHW2o
[...] Today, I’d like to take this post to thank all of our readers. We’ve been seeing quite a few new faces show up on MyBlogLog the last two weeks, some in part to our branching out with the Stephen Colbert post, and quite a few who are visiting after signing up for siteMighty.com. [...]