World Water Shortage vs. Golf Courses
Desiree D’Alessandro examines the commodification of natural resources in this remix, addressing the imminent crisis of the worldwide water shortage. Her source footage, which includes tv commercials, new segments and documentary footage, has become a major point of contention with her university, the University of California Santa Barbara. (More on this below)
UCSB declared D’Alessandro’s endeavors in acquiring and utilizing copyrighted source materials for creating remixes an “offense” as it violates the university’s Terms of Services. In order ‘to protect itself and its students’, UCSB considers any sharing of copyrighted material (music, movies, software and books included) a DMCA violation, even if, as in this case, the result is a fair use. The university also added that
appeals leads to serious legal procedures (in the past four years, no one at UCSB has ever filed ‘counter-notice’, the procedure with which people can appeal with a fair-use claim.)
The trend of policing university networks for DMCA violations is worrisome, as it usually urges the school to locate and save all student information related to the case. Thankfully, the University of Wisconsin, MIT and Boston College have refused to turn over student information and be a middle-man for groups like the RIAA who continue to endorse such network management policies.
From this debacle has come new work: D’Alessandro created a short remix that mashes screen shots of UCSB’s DMCA internet ban and scenes from the movie Step Brothers. She says,
Regardless of this incident, I am certain the Political Remix Video genre is moving toward a direction of net-neutrality, open-source access, and the deterioration of copyright restrictions.
Category: short film
