Blog 12

Written and directed by Brett Gaylor, RIP!, a Remix Manifesto, tells the story of remixing. Using artist Girl Talk as a central protagonist, copyright, content creation from copyrighted material, and their surrounding economies, Gaylor explores how we live in a world of conflict. The term Manifesto always brings up ideas of revolution, and here it is no exception. Connected to this are three key ideas presented in out text, Remix, by Lawrence Lessig. While the two authors approach the lesson differently, the book they teach from is the same.

First, both Lessig and Gaylor understand the importance of economy and how money is a big part of copyright. Lessig goes on quite a bit more than Gaylor, describing how there exist three economies; a commercial, sharing, and hybrid. In both the book and video, though, a relatively large portion of the content is spent showing how money is the prime motivator. The 'why' is never explored, as such an idea is part common sense, part sociological/psychological, however we see that if it were not for an author's desire to protect his work, and thus earn from it, copyright would never come into play. But for the love of money we have shown many stories of how groups, such as the RIAA, will litigate rapidly and harshly against all possible offenders, even to the point of excess.

Tied closely to the economy discussion, we see throughout how copyright and remix are all about control. The RIAA sues for enormous sums of money, it is true, however the point is not about earning back possible lost income for the artists (who in fact receive little to no compensation awarded by a court), but rather as a means to control future infringements. Copyright is a means to control material, and is backed by laws set in place to maintain control. Two of Gaylor's main points hit this on the head: "The past always tries to control the future" and "our future is becoming less free." Lessig does mirror these thoughts, but they are best shown in the video. Control is how our society continues to run, but there are severe problems in our culture's future is we don't reconcile differences between copyright and remixing.

Balance is the third concept shared strongly between the two videos. Both Lessig and Gaylor are looking for balance, but in their own ways. Gaylor wants everything to be remixable without restraint, yet such a vision is contradicting material in his video. He still needs to put food on the table and I strongly doubt he would object to making money from content he creates. Lessig does a better job at balance, creating a solution that is not self-contradictory if not a bit more complex. Earlier on the reading he describes Sousa and a good balance between the rights of an author and of a remixer.

Touching on those thoughts again, I believe there is a middle that can be pursued. A balance is critical to move forward, and as Lessig argues near the end of his book, criminalizing a whole new generation (and the cultural norms they have) is obviously a bad idea.