University of Wisconsin Milwaukee UWM Digital Commons Theses and Dissertations May 2018 Where’s the Fair Use? Participatory Culture, Creativity, and Copyright on Youtube Joseph Daniel Barden University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.uwm.edu/etd Part of the Communication Technology and New Media Commons, and the Mass Communication Commons Recommended Citation Barden, Joseph Daniel, "Where’s the Fair Use? Participatory Culture, Creativity, and Copyright on Youtube" (2018). Theses and Dissertations. 1744. https://dc.uwm.edu/etd/1744 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by UWM Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UWM Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. WHERE’S THE FAIR USE? PARTICIPATORY CULTURE, CREATIVITY, AND COPYRIGHT ON YOUTUBE by Joe Barden A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Media Studies at The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee May 2018 ABSTRACT WHERE’S THE FAIR USE? PARTICIPATORY CULTURE, CREATIVITY, AND COPYRIGHT ON YOUTUBE by Joe Barden The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2018 Under the Supervision of Professor David S. Allen This thesis examines how citizens used YouTube to air concerns about copyright law and its influence on content creation. It studies the “Where’s the Fair Use?” (#WTFU) movement that was formed in February 2016 and used YouTube videos to oppose the site’s copyright systems. Using textual and discourse analysis, this thesis examines seven different videos and their respective comment sections.