Digital Natives: encounter with the RIAA (finale)

Two weeks ago, the Digital Natives Reporters in the Field series brought you the first two parts of "The Ballad of Zack McCune" -- an exploration of digital natives and illegal downloading, guided by Berkman summer intern Zack McCune's encounter with the RIAA. This week, the series brings you the conclusion of Zack's tale in a video created by Digital Natives summer interns Nikki Leon and John Randall.

Without further ado, here is "The Ballad of Zack McCune, Part 3" as presented on the the Digital Natives blog:

The final episode in our three part series on music copyright issues has arrived! In April of last year, Zack McCune was sued by the RIAA. He ended up $3,000 lighter (he settled), but with a much richer understanding of the contemporary debate surrounding music, copyright law, and file sharing. Part I gives an intro to his story, while Part IIexplores the disconnect between young downloaders and the recording industry. Part III, presented here, concludes Zack’s misadventure and examines where it led him: to the Free Culture Movement, which advocates more flexible intellectual property law.

(This video was produced by Nikki Leon and John Randall)

 

If you’d like to learn more about illegal downloading or the Free Culture Movement, check out the following:

- The RIAA’s perspective on the issue
- Free Culture, by Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig.
- The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group that works to protect individuals’ rights online.
- Students for Free Culture
- Creative Commons, a leading organization in the Free Culture movement. Founded by Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons allows artists to modify the default “All Rights Reserved” copyright on their works to make them publicly available for distribution and remixing.

Come back every Wednesday for more multimedia on online privacy, cyber bullying, digital activism and more!

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Stay tuned for more Reporters in the Field episodes that, by doing and creating, explore the themes of the project and of John Palfrey and Urs Gasser's forthcoming Born Digital. And join in the exploration by commenting in text or video on the Digital Natives blog or YouTube channel.

Also on the horizon, the Cambridge book release party for Born Digital: September 23; save the date!