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George Lucas is notoriously stringent when it comes to copyright and trademark issues, but it looks like the director has finally realized that remix is the aesthetic of the new millennium, or at least this first decade of it.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Lucasfilm is taking approximately 250 clips from the various Star Wars movies and making them available to fans who want to download and use them in Internet mash-ups, re-mixes and re-cuts.
The clips, which run up to 60 seconds long, are debuting on Starwars.com as part of the 30th-anniversary celebration of the film's release. Lucasfilm swears it's like totally not gonna sue if you use them. They say they're even going to release more Star Wars clips in the coming months. The downside?
-it's unclear from the WSJ article what format the clips will be available in
-it seems you can only use Eyespot's proprietary editing app to create your mash-ups
-a team of Eyespot screeners based in Costa Rica (love that outsourcing!) must vet each video before it goes live
-it's not clear if you can upload the final videos to any site or only to Starwars.com
Someone at the company must've realized that if you can’t beat 'em, you might as well join 'em... and make money doing it.