Reading: ‘What is Collaboration Anyway?’ by Adam Hyde et al

In the chapter ‘What is Collaboration Anyway?’ from their book The Social Media Reader, Adam Hyde et al discuss the video above. It’s called ThruYou, a project created by user Kutiman from numerous YouTube videos which they have edited together to create a song. The reading discusses whether or not this can be considered to be a collaboration.

The authors ask us to put aside the legal issues with such a project, as an illegal downloader must have been used to allow Kutiman to use and edit these clips, and instead focus on what the creators of each individual video have done and what Kutiman did with their work. Each video was created and uploaded to be its own entity, with no intention for it be used in this way. The creators of these videos did not share the aim to create a complete track, but to instead create a video demonstrating how they play their individual instruments. The chapter suggests that in this way, this is not an example of a collaboration, as collaboration requires a shared goal and intention.

When I went to watch the video in order to better understand the point the chapter was making, I found it reminded me greatly of what we are currently doing with Project Brief 3. The footage footage clips we are using to create our projects were not created with the intention of being used by someone else to create a video portrait. Those clips were created to be their own entity, and their creators do not share our goals and intentions. While it is a little different to Kutiman’s videos, as we have permission to use the clips in our projects under CC licenses, it is interesting to look at what is actually required for something to be considered a collaboration.

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