{"id":34,"date":"2007-05-24T10:34:14","date_gmt":"2007-05-24T14:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/fkatz\/2007\/05\/24\/may-the-force-be-open\/"},"modified":"2007-05-24T10:40:07","modified_gmt":"2007-05-24T14:40:07","slug":"may-the-force-be-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fkatz\/2007\/05\/24\/may-the-force-be-open\/","title":{"rendered":"May the Force be Open and Mashed-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"[A
\nThe Wall Street Journal<\/a> reports that George Lucas has decided if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. The “Star Wars” creator and his company Lucasfilm has announced plans to make clips from the classic films available on Starwars.com <\/a>for fans to mash-up anyway they want, any time they want. The Journal says the clips will be up on the Web site tomorrow as part of the 30th anniversary of the first (or fourth, depending on who you ask) “Star Wars” film. Lucasfilm also says it will add more clips in the months to come.<\/p>\n

With the blessing of Mr. Lucas, fans can cut, add to and retool the clips. Then they can post their creations to blogs or social-networking sites like MySpace. More clips will come out from time to time over coming months.One category devoted to a much-maligned lizard-like character from the three “Star Wars” prequels urges fans: “Don’t be shy. Here’s your chance to edit Jar Jar.”<\/p>\n

The WSJ also reports that a “You Tube search for “Star Wars” turns up some 98,000 results, which Lucasfilm can’t control or monetize.<\/p>\n

Rather than issue take-down notices to 98,000 You Tube Star Wars groupies, Lucasfilm has decided instead to issue some rules. The mash-up project will come with rules, however. While it won’t stop anybody taking all kinds of creative license to create their own derivitie works. Lucas film working with Eyespot<\/a> has set up a program to prevent nudity, pornography and the usual “I’ll know it when I see it” Eyespot has set up a program to make sure none of the doctored clips contain nudity, pornography, and the like. As a backup, a team of screeners will watch each video before it goes live.<\/p>\n

Lucasfilm’s motivation for allowing — not prosecuting– mash-up artists is to keep fanning the flames of the “Star Wars” franchise and keep the movies alive in all forms for generations of fans. The company said it’s taking a long view of the franchise. “We understand social media and we are embracing it,” said a Lucasfilm spokesman.<\/p>\n

Read the WSJ story here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Wall Street Journal reports that George Lucas has decided if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. The “Star Wars” creator and his company Lucasfilm has announced plans to make clips from the classic films available on Starwars.com for fans to mash-up anyway they want, any time they want. The Journal says the clips will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":432,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[902,1041,891,1581],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-culture","category-mash-up-madness","category-pop-culture","category-social-networking"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fkatz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fkatz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fkatz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fkatz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/432"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fkatz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fkatz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fkatz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fkatz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fkatz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}