All great art is theft: remixing creative content in teaching digital media at university

The IP policy in Australian Universities is build on patenting and copyright. However, these legal frameworks are being swamped by the rising tide of social media and the associated practises of remixing and mashing up of digital assets that are now fundamental in media production. Recently, I explored Creative Commons (CC) licensing as an alternative approach to managing intellectual property in creative practice with students in Sound Design and Production at the University of Canberra. The students shared their own recordings with each other, and combined them with material from the internet, all under CC licensing on the ABC Pool online site http://www.pool.org.au for social media remixing. Together they collaboratively produced four Audio-only films of short stories by indigenous writer Barry Cooper that have been mixed with other CC licensed podcasts on the issue, and a recording of an initial presentation on this topic made to the Practice-led research symposium at University of Canberra in September 2009.