Critical Commons is a public media archive and fair use advocacy network that supports the transformative reuse of media in scholarly and creative contexts. Critical Commons is also part of the technical and conceptual architecture of the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture and the electronic authoring/publishing platform Scalar.
Steve Anderson is an Associate Professor in the Media Arts + Practice and Interactive Media & Games divisions of the USC School of Cinematic Arts. His research focuses on the history, theory, and cultures of digital media and its impact on teaching, learning, and regimes of intellectual property. He is the author of Technologies of History: Visual Media and the Eccentricity of the Past (2011) and Co-Editor of Vectors Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular. He is also a co-Principal Investigator of the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture, developer of the electronic authoring and publishing platform Scalar. He is the Principal Investigator and an active user of Critical Commons.
Holly Willis serves as Chair of the Media Arts + Practice division in the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Her current research centers on the intersection of media art, graphic design, and rhetoric, and the ways ideas and formal strategies from each might inform contemporary media-rich scholarly practices. Willis oversees the IML’s research in pedagogical technology and promotes the use of online tools for scholarly production and research. Willis is also the editor of The New Ecology of Things, on design and pervasive computing, and author of New Digital Cinema: Reinventing the Moving Image, which chronicles the advent of digital filmmaking tools and their impact on contemporary media practices. She is a Co-PI on Critical Commons.
Philip J. Ethington is Professor of History and Political Science at USC, North American Editor and Multimedia Editor of the journal Urban History, and Co-Director of the USC Center for Transformative Scholarship. An interdisciplinary historian, Ethington's scholarship explores the past as a cartography of time. His recent work includes theoretical work on a spatial theory of history, sociological studies of residential segregation, large-format maps of urban historical change, online interactive tools, archives, and publications for urban studies, and museum exhibit collaborations. He is co-PI of the HyperCities project (funded by the MacArthur Foundation and HASTAC). He is a co-PI on Scalar and Critical Commons.
Tara McPherson is Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. She is a core faculty member of the IMAP program, USC’s innovative practice-based Ph.D., and also an affiliated faculty member in the American Studies and Ethnicity Department. Her research engages the cultural dimensions of media, including the intersection of gender, race, affect, and place. She has a particular interest in digital media, focusing on the digital humanities, early software histories, gender, and race, as well as the development of new tools and paradigms for digital publishing, learning, and authorship. She is PI on Scalar and co-PI on Critical Commons.
Erik Loyer is Critical Commons' Creative Director and Information Architect, and a media artist who uses tactile, performative interfaces to tell stories with interactive media. He is the founder of the design studio Song New Creative, develops story-driven interactive entertainment under the Opertoon label, and is Creative Director for the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture.
Anna Helme is a filmmaker, video artist, and developer of social change media and technology projects. She is a co-founder of EngageMedia, which trains video makers in online distribution, networks media activists, produces free software video technology, and distributes video about social justice and environmental issues in the Asia-Pacific. She has been project managing the development of Critical Commons since its inception.
Unweb.me provides innovative information systems addressing real-world problems. We deliver user-friendly and highly secure applications. We support our clients during the entire life cycle of each product. We love free & open-source software and agile development practices.
Infinite Recursion is a bespoke software services company that was responsible for developing and maintaining Critical Commons from fall 2009 through summer 2012.
EngageMedia is a video-sharing site focusing on social justice and environmental issues in the Asia-Pacific. It is a space for critical documentary, fiction, artistic, and experimental works that challenge the dominance of mainstream media. The EngageMedia Collective developed the initial launch version of Critical Commons using the free, open-source content management system Plumi.
Original graphic design by Alex Louie.
Critical Commons received generous funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as part of the 2008 Digital Media and Learning initiative and is an ongoing project of the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Seed funding for this project was provided by USC's James H. Zumberge Research and Innovation Fund, and additional development funds were provided by the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture (ANVC) and the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).
Although Critical Commons is committed to informing and empowering individuals to understand their rights and responsibilities under fair use, we cannot provide legal advice about particular situations. Please consult our Fair Use Resources page and Community Guidelines for information about recent developments in fair use and links to best practices guidelines.
In some ways, Critical Commons is similar to YouTube. For example, users are entirely responsible for the content they upload, and we rely on our community of users to notify us of inappropriate content. The primary difference between Critical Commons and other video-sharing sites is that we only display media that is placed in a critical context that transforms and recontextualizes the media, adding value and significance to the original work. We have also never taken down a piece of media due to a legal threat or challenge.
Fair use is critical to users who deal with media in educational contexts, and we decided to give priority to this group of users during the site's initial stages. If you feel you have a justifiable rationale for seeking Advanced User status, you are welcome to apply using our Contact form.
We need to be sure you are who you say you are. Right now, we require both an institutional URL and a dot-edu e-mail address to verify your status as an educator. If you can't access your institutional e-mail address or don't appear on your institutional website, you can still apply for Advanced status via our Contact form.
Sadly, we are no longer able to support the mobile version of Critical Commons. However, our new site has been redeveloped specifically to be friendly to a wide range of tablet and mobile devices.
To find the word "postmodern" within "postmodernism" or "postmodernist," simply add an asterisk to the end of the word, e.g. "postmodern*". Just enter this in the search bar at the top of the page.
This is a new feature for Critical Commons. Just use the drop-down menu next to our ordinary Search field and select "Contributor."
Critical Commons was developed using the free, open-source content management system Plone. More specifically, we are using the video-enabled variant of Plone called “Plumi,” which was created by our site developers EngageMedia, Infinite Recursion, and UnWeb.
No. We believe strongly in the ideologies of creativity, culture, and sharing that underlie Creative Commons' tiered licensing structure, and our users are invited to apply Creative Commons licenses to the commentaries they add to our system, but we are not affiliated with them in any way. You can learn more about Creative Commons by visiting their website.