Charlotte Sometimes

So as well as taking photographs at PD events I also work behind the scenes. I have my fingers stuck in pretty much every area of Matt’s business that feeds images into the public domain.

Lots of people are aware that I spend time working on the wiki to remove copyrighted images and replace them with images from the game (it’s starting to look good, but we’ve got a long way to go) and this is because I feel passionately about the rights of content creators.

I have quite considerable knowledge about the way that licensing works with images, but recently I’ve been investigating how video and music also works within the copyright world. I mean, I have a basic understanding because the various types of art aren’t actually all that different, however the digital world is constantly in flux and new uses are developing for media every day.

My latest challenge has been to understand the way that YouTube deals with copyrighted material and it’s been a challenge. I had a basic grasp on how it works but this morning I came across this TED talk by Margaret Gould Stewart, the head of user experience at YouTube. She explains what they do very well.

I like the way she talks about a creative ecosystem. It’s an feeling I’d like to help foster at PD, allowing creatives to all work together as seamlessly as possible.

I’d also like to say that I don’t believe that ripping big international content creators off (like the big Hollywood studios or famous composers) is any more ethical than ripping off the lone artist. If we’re going to be fair to one person, we need to be fair to everybody in the course of business. I suppose I have an advantage here because I see things in a very black and white way. You either apply the rules rigorously, or you don’t. You don’t make exceptions based on who has made the most money in our capitalist system.