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Pat Aufderheide, one of the original judges of the Total Recut Video Remix Challenge 2008 offers her congratulations to our winners, DJ Le Clown, Jata Haan and Ricardo Carrion for their videos, Xmas in New York City, Composition and Remix Culture II. Thank you Pat and well done guys! WATCH THE WINNING VIDEOS
Pat Aufderheide is Director of the Center for Social Media at the American University in Washington D.C. Pat and her associates are responsible for the research, devlopment and publication of the 'Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video' and the study, 'Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video.' Here is an introduction to the Code of Best Pratices:

'This document is a code of best practices that helps creators, online providers, copyright holders, and others interested in the making of online video interpret the copyright doctrine of fair use. Fair use is the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment under some circumstances.

This is a guide to current acceptable practices, drawing on the actual activities of creators, as discussed among other places in the study Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video and backed by the judgment of a national panel of experts. It also draws, by way of analogy, upon the professional judgment and experience of documentary filmmakers, whose own code of best practices has been recognized throughout the film and television businesses.

This code of best practices does not tell you the limits of fair use rights.

It’s not a guide to using material people give permission to use, such as works using Creative Commons licenses. Anyone can use those works the way the owners say that you can.

It’s not a guide to material that is already free to use without considering copyright. For instance, all federal government works are in the public domain, as are many older works. In most cases, trademarks are not an issue. For more information on “free use,” consult the document “Yes, You Can!” and copyright.cornell.edu.

It’s not a guide to using material that someone wants to license but cannot trace back to an owner—the so-called “orphan works” problem.

A distinguished panel of experts, drawn from cultural scholarship, legal scholarship, and legal practice, developed this code of best practices, informed by research into current personal and nonprofessional video practices (“user-generated video”) and on fair use. CLICK HERE FOR MORE UPDATE