How to remix content

How to remix content

By the Ourmedia staff

To remix content is to take elements of two or more media files and mash them together to create a new work. Often, these are called mash-ups — a major element of remix culture.

Available content

If someone publishes a media item with a traditional copyright license — or with no license at all — generally you may not borrow from it to mix with other media elements unless it falls under a fair use exception or unless you have the owner's permission.

Media files shared under the following licenses allow others to remix them:

Creative Commons Attribution
Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

If a media item is designated with one of the above Creative Commons licenses or it resides in the public domain, you are free to remix, reinvent and recirculate it to your heart's content. Be sure to give credit to those whose works you sampled or reinterpreted.

See the Open Media Directory for a wide range of works you are allowed to borrow from legally.

Tools

We hope to bring our members a wide range of tools for remixing video and audio in the months ahead. In the meantime, here are some places where you can do so now:

Jumpcut: This start-up, recently purchased by Yahoo!, lets people edit and mash up video on the fly.

Eyespot: This start-up also allows people to drag-and-drop video clips from various sources to create a new movie.

Outhink: This start-up allows artists to collaborate by exchanging media files through a secure file-sharing program called SpinXpress.

Notice: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, compatible with Wikipedia.

Please comment on, correct or expand upon this article. Contact us.