In this weeks Wimba we reviewed everything we had learned about copyright in the prior week. Which was helpful, to review, because copyright law is needlessly confusing. As I said last week, the means of media production as well as copyright law need an overhaul to bring them both more inline with the digital culture of the 21st century.
About a year ago I read this
article by Ken Auletta in the
New Yorker and as I was reading I was shocked at the way that the publishing industry is run. "Robbing Peter to pay Paul" is not a good business plan, and the film industry is no better. In one of the first classes I took as a film major we read an essay on the fact that it is impossible to make money making films. As an aspiring filmmaker it was depressing and a wake up call. I don't know what the new model will look like but it is obvious that it needs to change. Not everyone in media is oblivious to the need for change a great example is Joss Whedon and the way he distributed
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. He initially released it on the internet for free, which is something that had never been heard of in mainstream Hollywood. After about a month if I remember correctly he took down the free version and if you really loved it you could buy it from Itunes or on DVD. Making the internet and the new digital culture work for him rather than against him, which is definitely a step in the right direction.
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