TV commerical jams

Caped Masked and Armed dot com is running a series of remixed TV advertisements, check them out. Lessig notes that this is part of the newish remix culture. This remix culture exists largely on the left side of the political stream and is called "jamming," a term popularized by Kalle Lasn's book "Culture Jam." Caped Masked and Armed note on their website:

The following [ad jams] are meant only as humorous, satirical works of art. They are not meant for sale or profit in any way, shape or form. Please see the fair use notice at the bottom of this page. Also If you would like to download and/or add them to your own site, feel free!

They probably meant to say that the ads are parodies, because as we all know, satire is not protected under the fair use provision of the Copyright Act.

A use can contain both satire and parody and will still be fair use, but if the use is soley satirical then it is not fair use. The differece being that satire targets society in general and parody targets the work being used (or the products they advertise in this case). Since these ad jams are noncommerical and are political speech that target the ads they should be considered a fair use of the ads they take footage from. The jams about Fox News and The US Air Force (slightly graphic) are among the most powerful.

Also, check out Gunner Palace dot com. Apparently some soldiers in Iraq are making their own documentary about thier experiences. This is almost certainly unauthorized by the US Gov't. I am not sure I would call it a political remix excactly, but it is certainly futher testiment to the power of digital technology and the Internet to make information available. There are two videos on the page (trailers for the film), check out the rap video, it's actually pretty good and certainly contains a powerful message from one of our soldiers.