Down to the Wire 2006: Fanboys and fangirls unite

Helen & Chelfyn Baxter talk about the 90/9/1 rule of producing and consuming creative content.

Down to the Wire 2006: Fanboys and fangirls unite

In June 2006, many Kiwis found themselves watching a teenage girl broadcasting video from her bedroom. It would be September before most were willing to admit to it.

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It wasn’t just Kiwis, but a large portion of Internet users that found themselves caught up in the day-to-day dramas of teen video blogger LonelyGirl15 in mid-2006.

Many had their suspicions along the way, but these weren’t confirmed until September when Jessica Rose outed herself as a 19-year-old New Zealand-born actress rather than the 15-year old American she was playing in the YouTube videos.

Unlike in the USA, New Zealand has no fair use clause in its copyright statutes that allows for satirical use of copyright content, so every remix risked raising the ire of rights holders. With the growth in activity by Generation-C and those in academia and government who wanted to give their content away, the push to get Creative Commons licences ‘ported’ to make them New Zealand-friendly began in earnest – and was completed in 2007.