Avoiding the law

The short excerpt from Lessig's "The Future of Ideas" has me wondering what he has to say in the rest of his book. Having just reviewed some of the web videos on the IPDI site, the excerpt led me to think about the possibilities of web videos. Lessig makes it a point to show how copyright laws and "clearing rights" are inhibiting the creativity and innovation of traditional film directors:

“Ten years ago,” Guggenheim explains, “if incidental artwork . . . was recognized by a common person,” then you would have to clear its copyright. Today, things are very different. Now “if any piece of artwork is recognizable by anybody . . . then you have to clear the rights of that and pay” to use the work. “[A]lmost every piece of artwork, any piece of furniture, or sculpture, has to be cleared before you can use it.”

Clearly this burdens the artist with unrealistic expectations. And this is where, in looking at Internet political communications, there appears to be some wiggle-room for the online activists who put together web videos. Rather than risk having their traditional film stopped by judges or taken to court, online filmmakers, particularly anonymous ones, have the flexibility to do things that wouldn't normally be allowed.

Take, for example, the ad that Colorado Families First put out against Marilyn Musgrave. The ad shows a Musgrave lookalike sneaking over to a soldier (who is in the midst of firefight) and stealing his money. Musgrave went ballistic over the ad, and if I recall correctly, they pulled it... even though CO Families First took down their website and changed their name, it kept circulating on the left-wing blogs because of its humor and strong message, and to this day, you can still find the ad on the Internet.

So, the flip-side of this is that these videos then become more partisan and more extreme. If there's no one to stop you from using whatever material you want, and if your product is going to be viewed by a very specific political audience, there are no real-life barriers to making the most negative, mean-spirited movies.