Fair Use In Australia

Decided that in order to elevate the work, it needed something beyond just the spliced imagery and after taking some time to think, the most effective way was through using text via subtitles.

I flirted with a few ideas, including appropriating poetry and so on, but eventually settled on taking a slightly satirical take to Australia’s fair use and copyright laws. I settled on this, as it ties directly into the medium of footage taken from a feature film.

The text I’m going to use is several sections of a document published by the Australian Law Reform Commission titled Copyright in the Digital Economy, published in 2013 as part of an ongoing discussion into Australia’s copyright laws and how they operate in the face of rapidly changing digital technologies.

By incorporating some passages from this legal document, this acts as a slightly tongue-in-cheek approach to the medium of video art using found footage, while also grounding the work in a contemporary issue which is deeply pertinent to all creative practitioners working in Australia.