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I think as we enter an era with increasingly accessible media creation and dissemination tools, and develop better practices re: attribution and permissions, that we remember to give this treatment to every medium.
I see a lot of energy for specific attribution, evidence of permissions, and calls for takedowns when it comes to still visual art, and that’s great! We should continue to do that. But I’ve noticed an increasingly popular trend in video content creation that unsettles me a bit.
If you are using video footage that you did not film, I’m of the opinion that you should be at minimum making the source material for your footage clear. Particularly when that footage is a part of a narrative or work that also has completely original characters or plot mixed in.
Often when I see excessive lifting of material without credit, it tells me that the creator of the completed, composite work does not respect the work of the creators whose work they are building upon. Which is a shame, because a lot of the editing work I see is lovely.
A surprisingly great example of attribution I see in remix and reconfiguration of pre-existing works is the way many producers label their remixes on YouTube. Much of that production and mix work isn’t “official,” but I see a standard. Song title, original artist, remixer name.
I think that’s great, and reflective of a standard we have all quietly agreed upon in fandom spaces particularly. AO3 is another example. I post a fic on AO3, that fic is tagged and labeled for the source material within which I am working.
I, at least, would much rather see digital spaces and their communities encouraging that kind of attribution and respect to the creators of pre-existing works that we are using. And to be honest, it’s generally not hard to find the source.
