Here are some relatively short answers to what metavid is about.

Metaivd addresses the problem of undemocratic systems of engagement with political proceedings. We argue that in commercial content production there is an inherently undemocratic assumption in which there are “producers” of information and “consumers” of information.

In commercial television for example political proceedings are mediated by the selection of news segments, the editorializing of the content, the news tickers, the choice of subject matter, the advertisements etc. These mediations predominately reflect the point of view of the concentrated power which produces them and is therefore undemocratic. The production is packaged in compiled form as an authoritative product which is made un-questionable by the culture of consumption and Intellectual Property laws which forbids the reuse or re-contextualization of this content.

Metavid in contrast makes the assumption that everyone is a participant. In Metavid all the mediations built with or in the system are open source. You can change the in and out points on the segments your presented with, you can view source on the ticker and change the sources of information from which it draws its titles. You can re-mediate or re-negotiate anything before you including the metavid system itself which is also open source, built on top of other open source applications. This operates within a culture of participation, and rather then focusing on the first creator leverages the potential for creation in everyone.

We feel this begins to addresses the problem of undemocratic systems of engagement by providing liberalized alternative context for engagement. Building off of the work of innovative participatory cultural systems such as wikipeidia, metavid makes the full archive of participation, meta data, and public domain content freely available for re-appropriation as long as you do not restrict the freedom of others to do the same.

And finally some relevant quotes:

“What matters therefore is the exemplary character of production, which is able first to induce others to produce, and second, to put an improved apparatus at their disposal. And this apparatus is better the more consumers it is able to turn into producers, that is readers or spectators into collaborators” Benjamin, Author as Producer

“If its correct as I believe it is that a fundamental element of human nature is the need for creative work or creative inquiry for free-creation without the arbitrary limiting effects of coercive institutions then of course it will fallow that a decent society should maximize the possibilities for this fundamental human characteristic to be realized.” Noam Chomsky