Brian's Fifth Blog Post

Online Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing

Online Marketing: A set of tools and methods used for promoting products and services through the internet.

Traditional Marketing: Any type of promotion, advertising or campaign that has been used by companies for years. Methods of traditional market include print, broadcast, direct mail, and telephone

Online and traditional marketing are vastly different. This doesn't go to say that one method is better than the other, but both types of marketing cater to their audience uniquely. Traditional marketing targets a mass audience through specific mediums. For example, radio broadcasts reach a large number of people every day. Unlike online marketing, traditional doesn't have as customized of a target audience. Online marketing is better able to cater to specific people. However, it is still capable of a mass approach, such as viral videos.

Enjoy this South Park Clip parodying popular YouTube videos...

When I say online marketing is more specific, it's because the internet is a powerful source through its interactivity. Since online users are interactive, marketers can base what types of products you see, by simply knowing what you have been doing on the internet. For example, I am a New York Yankees fan, so I tend to see a lot of Yankees products when I'm online. It's pretty freaky.

The main advantage to online marketing is its ability to connect with people on a personal level. You are essentially building relationships with marketers, because they find out your interests, and cater to your needs specifically, and efficiently.

On the other hand, traditional marketing is good for exposing you to new things. Since the internet can be so specific, it closes doors to other things you may not know about. Traditional marking is useful in terms of learning about products you may never think to search for.

Brian's Fourth Blog Post

Fair Use and Transformative Use in Girl Talk

Fair use: Any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and transformative purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Fair use can be done without the permission from the copyright owner.

Transformative use: A derivative work is transformative if it uses a source work in completely new or unexpected ways. It's a relatively new addition to fair use law, having been first raised in a Supreme Court decision in 1995.

I'm currently taking an electronic media law and regulations class, where we have done a great deal of discussion on fair use.

The Copyright Act of 1976 states: The fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. The purpose and character of the use should be for nonprofit educational purposes, and not be of commercial nature.

Between the Copyright Act and transformative use, it's quite obvious there still isn't a strong grasp on copyright law. It's constantly developing and changing.

Girl Talk Case: "Girl Talk" is an American musician who specializes in mashups and digital sampling. The Girl Talk case coincides extremely well with copyright law. The reason being that you can argue either for, or against, whether or not his works are transformative. Girl Talk technically isn't transforming songs, but rather using samples straight from the original works. Legally, I would argue that this probably isn't a safe bet. Girl Talk doesn't purchase the rights to the music he uses, so I think this could potentially infringe copyright laws. However, Girl Talk seems to care more about the music than the money. One could argue that the nature of his music can be considered fair use.But is the music being transformed? Decide for yourself....