remixing culture
o b j e c t i v e
- become acquainted with copyright as a historic, cultural and economic paradigm and its value and pertinence to creative works
a r t i f a c t
I had a couple of thoughts regarding this week’s materials on remix culture and copyright law. First, did anyone else draw a corollary between what Lesig said about the “age of prohibition” (Lessig, TED2007) we live in and drug culture as it relates to legalization?
The arguments he makes against certain kinds of read-only culture remind me strongly of the kind folks make regarding legalization laws: “We need to recognize you can’t kill the instant that technology produces, we can only criminalize it. We can’t stop our kids from using it; we can only drive it underground. We can’t make our kids passive again; we can only make them “pirates”– and is that good?” (Lessig, TED2007).
How do you feel about ordinary people living their lives against the law (Lessig, TED2007) as it relates to what Lesig discusses? As it relates to drug culture? Do you think that sort of underground realization is equally corrosive and corruptive to a society when it comes to drug culture? (Lessig, TED2007).
The other thought I had while watching the presentation and looking over the reading was about intellectual property at large. Nothing exists nor is created in a void. Everything piggy-backs on prior developments and discoveries: how do you think this idea should influence copyright law? Or how not?
r e f l e c t i o n + f u t u r e g o a l s
This unit is/was very near and dear to me. Intellectual property has been a major consideration of mine for the past several years and I’ve yet to reach entirely conclusive answers. Intuitively I’ve felt intellectual property is silly, as I stated in my response to the unit material: nothing exists in a void and everything piggy-backs off former developments. I thought Lessig made a lot of really decent non-polarizing points about the issue that definitely influenced my outlook on the subject.
Art becomes something very intriguing when money becomes involved. On the one hand a person should be recognized for the time and talent that went into the production of whatever piece of work is being considered, on the other hand this ultimately seems a very capitalist driven model where time is the ultimate commodity. Without an ability to make money off of artistic works, would we have the same number of artists and creative forces present? I don’t know. It would be tragic if it somehow dampened that collective dialogue — so in that sense, I think there might be a need for some degree of copyright law. Regardless, what I took away more than anything from this unit and its materials was the need for copyright reform. It needs to adjust to modern times.
Going forward I want to learn more about copyright law, infringement, etc and potentially play with these concepts as a piece or series of my own work. I think it’s a really important dialogue that needs to be brought the the forefront of the discussion table.