Anubhav Gupta

Objectives:

• Become acquainted with copyright as a historic, cultural and economic paradigm and its value and pertinence to creative works.
• Explore the changing nature of copyright in the context of “Remix Culture” and the “Fifth World”
• Examine their own and others values and paradigms of ownership and authorship of cultural media.
• Evaluate the meanings of real and fake and examine their intersection with personal and cultural identity and authenticity

Original Post:

In this week’s reading by Larry Lessig, the concepts of RO culture and RW culture were introduced. In my opinion, RW culture is more valuable because it fosters and encourages creativity from an early age. As a child, one develops a personal “taste” for various interactions/experiences due to external influences and also begins to display a certain pattern of behavior.

“RW culture extends itself differently. It touches social life differently. It gives the audience something more. Or better, it asks something more of the audience. It is offered as a draft. It invites a response” (Lessig, 85). Due to this interactive nature of the RW culture, I think it is more valuable for humanity than RO culture. Then there is law, which encourages RO culture and prohibits the progression of RW culture. While this doesn’t mean that RW culture will be nonexistent, law considers it pretty much illegal. “For again, the very act of rewriting in a digital context produces a copy; that copy triggers the law of copyright” (100).

In the video “Laws That Choke Creativity”, Lessig spoke about those who strictly adhere to copyright law and vow to take anything and everything that violates copyright, down. On the contrary, he said there are those who disregard all copyright laws. Lessig then states that there is possibility for a happy medium between these two ideologies, but only if certain changes are implemented. First, artists and creators will have to opt to make their work more readily available, especially for amateur use. Secondly, businesses need to embrace the RW culture and enable opportunity within so the idea of “free content” can grow on a neutral platform. I think a happy medium would be ideal but I think it is difficult because if artists did make their work more freely available, they would eventually require the need for financial support. Money makes the world go around and while work can be made freely available, artists will eventually require money for their ongoing efforts.

Another interesting artifact that I explored for this week’s topic was The Grey Album by Danger Mouse. First of all, I think individual creations that have copyright on them are strictly property of that individual. Therefore, stealing or using without permission is wrong and considered “trespassing”, as also mentioned by Lessig in his TED talk. With this album, however, by Danger Mouse, a “remix” was created rather than a complete copy of the original work. This brings up the debate regarding where the line should be drawn between complete copying and partial copying. How much adaptation needs to occur before the “borrowed” work becomes completely original? Personally, I think changing the law to allow “remixing” of copyright work is difficult because there are variable degrees of copying. Furthermore, if someone breaches a copyright and claims it to be original work and attempts to make subsequent profit, it is wrong. However, if original work is merely adapted or “remixed” and made available for non-commercial use, it should be allowed. I think this is where creativity emerges.

Reflection:

This week’s topic was interesting because it made me realize how much remixing of culture there is in our society today. We constantly reuse and restructure traditional ideas and concepts and try to make them our own. A great example of this was the Grey Album by Danger Mouse. This album used songs from The Beatles’ White Album and Jay-Z’s Black Album, and recreated them in a way that sounded unique. This is very popular in our music society today and you can easily find remixes of all types of music. A very common example of this can be seen in the genre of EDM or Electric Dance Music. EDM often mashes up original songs by adding various background music and recreating something entirely new. While this does sound “catchy”, there is a debate to whether or not this infringes upon certain copyright laws.

I think another example of remixing culture is evident in cooking food. In my artifact during Week 4 (Is Food Art?), I mentioned “in terms of cultural differences in the production and consumption of food, I think many cultures are concerned with aesthetics when it comes to food, which deals with its taste and overall appearance.” With this concern of aesthetics, many people who cook will add in their own touch to recipes to make their food look and taste good in accordance to their own preferences. While, this can be considered “recreating”, it is not the same as recreating someone else’s work and then publishing it as your own. Another example can be found in playing sports and learning from fellow athletes. Watching another player’s moves and then copying them or taking bits and pieces of them and recreating them is not considered copyright either. This goes to show that “copying” or “recreating” in some aspects is acceptable but frowned upon in others, further depicting the grey area present with copyright laws. Overall, the material presented this week helped me learn about copyright and its direct affect on the creativity in our world today. Additionally, from my critique on Larry Lessig’s theories presented in his TED talk, I was able to learn about my own values and paradigms of ownership and authorship of cultural media. By engaging in discussion with my classmates, I was able to further enhance my understanding of this and hash out minor details along the way. While copyright is necessary, I think it does restrict people from creating certain art forms. On the other hand, I think this restriction also allows people to “think outside the box” and demonstrate further personal creativity. This also signifies the importance of RW culture, opposed to RO culture, because it invites a response from audiences and seeks more direct engagements.

Below, I chose to include a music video by SoMo for the song “Thinkin’ out Loud” by Ed Sheeran. SoMo is a musician who has become rather popular for creating renditions of songs by other artists. I think he does a great job with his renditions, and sometimes they sound much better than the actual songs. The reason this is not a copyright infringement is because he fully acknowledges the songs he is recreating and does not try to acquire personal credit for the songs.

Future:

In the future, I want to learn more about copyright laws and how they are determined for different circumstances like movies, music, and art. I also want to learn about the consequences that are enforced if these copyright laws are violated. I think copyright is important to protect intellectual property so it should be something that everyone understands.

References:

1. The Grey Album. (2006, September 23). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 04:10, September 24, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php title=The_Grey_Album&oldid=77394010

2. Electronic dance music. (2015, March 10). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:53, March 11, 2015, fromhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Electronic_dance_music&oldid=650787353

3. Lessig, Lawrence. Laws that choke creativity. TED2007, March 2007.

4. http://www.officialsomo.com

Table of Contents 

Artifact #1: The Nature of Human Values

Artifact #2: What is Art for?

Artifact #3: Is Food Art?

Artifact #4: The Art of Personal Adornment

Artifact #5: Aesthetics of Horror

Artifact #6: Creative Spirituality

Artifact #7: Technology, Games, & Art

Artifact #8: Remixing Culture

Bibliography