Re-Imagining Accessibility
![Shepard Fairey’s “Barack Obama/Hope” image went viral during the 2008 election. Then controversy about the image’s source transformed it into the poster child for fair use in the public debate over copyright and free culture. Now FULAB takes “Hope” as its icon [Image source: Wikipedia]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/shepard_fairey_hope_2008.jpg "shepard_fairey_hope_2008")
Re-imagining accessibility through the transformations of culture -- particularly the transformative promise of accessible technology for people with disabilities -- is the work of the Fair Use Lab. What does Shepard Fairey’s Hope poster have to do with accessibility? Read more: Shape-Shifters in the Fair Use Lab [MiT6 2009]
Remix: Danger Mouse
![Promotional artwork for "The Grey Album" by Justin Hampton. This was not used for the actual cover, but appeared on the Danger Mouse website in 2004. [Source: Wikipedia]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/danger_mouse_grey_album_cover_200.jpg "danger_mouse_grey_album_cover_200")
Will DJ Danger Mouse become the Che Guevara of digital sampling? Consider the case for fair use made by The Grey Album.Blind Photographers
In the moment when Paul Strand photographed her surreptitiously on the street in New York, the social engineers who created a system for licensing beggars never imagined that a blind woman had culture or could make culture. She herself may not have imagined it. Paul Strand probably didn’t give her much credit for making culture, either. Read more: Curiosity & The Blind Photographer [MiT5 2007] See more on blind photographers.Disability As Praxis
I am a parent, homeowner, knowledge worker, and person with disabilities. Oppression is not my true word, but praxis is. In Paulo Freire’s transformative work, I find an affirmation deeper than ideology or political activism -- an affirmation of the dynamic role of disability in culture. I believe the daily praxis of making adaptations and negotiating accommodations represents a significant form of cultural production. Read Disability As Praxis.ADA 20th Anniversary
![President George H.W. Bush signs into law the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on July 26, 1990 as Justin Dart looks on. [Source: ucp.org]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/ada_signing_072690_ucp_2.jpg "ada_signing_072690_ucp_2")
On its 20th anniversary, pundits will debate what the Americans with Disabilities Act has accomplished. I still believe what I said in a TV interview after the ADA signing ceremony in 1990. “The ADA will not end disability discrimination overnight. But in a nation governed by the rule of law, getting it in writing is the place to start.” So what is the ADA's legacy? A Generation of Problem-Solvers.
a blind flaneur
Category Archives: copyright
Who Profits From Those Anonymous Guy Fawkes Masks? Time-Warner
When members of Anonymous, the hacker group, appear in public to protest censorship and what they view as corruption, they don a plastic mask of Guy Fawkes, the 17th-century Englishman who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament. What few people seem to know, though, is that Time Warner, one of the largest media companies in the world and parent of Warner Brothers, owns the rights to the image and is paid a licensing fee with the sale of each mask. Continue reading
Fibbing to Clear the Rights for “Hard Knock Life”
In his Decoded book tour interview on NPR’s Fresh Air, Jay-Z tells the story of how he cleared the copyright to sample “Hard Knock Life” from the musical Annie. The result became a hip-hop classic, “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem).” Continue reading
Jay-Z Blesses The Grey Album Remix
Jay-Z is promoting a new book called Decoded. In an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air, Terry Gross asked him what he thought about Danger Mouse’s Grey Album, the legendary mashup of Jay-Z’s Black Album and the Beatles’ White Album. As Gross notes, the mashup was made without any copyright permission, although she didn’t explain that Jay-Z made his vocal tracks freely available for remixing. Continue reading
To the barricades with Cory Doctorow!
Cory Doctorow: “I came to the copyfight from a pretty parochial place. As a working artist, I wanted a set of just copyright rules that provided a sound framework for my negotiations with big publishers, film studios, and similar institutions.” Continue reading