Blog 10

Turns out I did Blog 11 for Blog 10 or some other such. If you want to read what I wrote, knock yourself out. Its at the bottom below the new real Blog 10.

A remix I like is Psychosocial Baby. It is a music remix combining two very popular songs for wildly different reasons. Drawing upon our reading, I see how this video connects to Lessig's Remix in 3 different ways.

First, referring to text on page 59, Lessig asks how one could go about finding anything of interest, when (in the newly forming blogosphere) everything seemed so similar? The idea of uniqueness is tough to describe, as anything new has, in almost all cases, actually been done before. Newness is reserved for content that brings together old pieces in ways that are interesting. It is that intersection that is first noticed in the remix I linked. Each video, on its own, fits with the content managed by the band or producer. But when combined, the immense differences show up and something new is born.

Secondly, on page 70, Lessig describes how a "collage of physical objects is difficult ... and expensive." In Psychosocial Baby, we see two videos combined to form one, however each on its own is a full music video produced with very expensive sets, equipment, and talent. The author of the remix, however, needed none of those things and was still able to create something just as valuable (to the right audience). This is, in part, why remixing is a threat to controlling bodies and especially to those groups that made the investment to the original content.

Finally, on 79, Lessig talks about how our culture of buying has created resentment towards the creation of noncommercial products. SlipKnot and Justin Beiber are both multimillion dollar music group(s) and they sell many millions of dollars in products. For someone to create new content for free, to be disseminated and spread without cost, is an affront (of sorts) to the premise of a commercial economy. Products, generally, are not meant to be free, yet we find with remixes that nothing more is asked than respect for the creation act.










Asked to discuss sharing and commercial economies in Lessig's Remix, the question that I need to reach is 'so what.' First though, a description of these ideas.


Commercial economies are by far the simplest, for no other reason than our active familiarity with them in American culture. Buying products with a form of money is something we grow up with, either at the store with our parents or maybe in one of the many television ads. Lessig describes a commercial economy as this exchange of goods or services for currency. This understanding of how value is transferred creates the necessary base for a sharing economy.


A sharing economy describes the exchange of value using anything BUT currency as a means to make that exchange. It is easiest, as Lessig shows himself, to describe a sharing economy by pointing out what it is not. Helping a close neighbor with some groceries and then being paid for that help is not a sharing economy. Asking a close friend for a backrub and then offering to pay at the end is not a sharing economy. In fact, anything using money to transfer value is almost always not a sharing economy. A sharing economy is where the value expected from a transaction goes beyond money and enters a more abstract realm, such as friendship, love, kindness, and the like.


So what? Well, according to Lessig, the answer to many of our remixing and copyright problems lies in the middle of these two economies, in a hybrid he calls it. He states that finding and earning money through a remix is not bad, as long as the remix adds to a collective value (otherwise we are back at a commercial economy). Lessig does well to use economies to describe remix culture and copyright law, as it is often in our world that money influences nearly everything. Part common sense and part advanced psychology/sociology, the desire for money makes many familiar with how to associate value with it. This knowledge allows Lessig to jump right into his argument, without first trying to show how money is good or bad or what have you. With economies as a starting point, Lessig makes his points quickly and clearly, and the book is better for it.