Blog #12

For some reason, it's incredibly difficult to find the will to write this last blog. But here we go, connections I found between Lawrence Lessig's Remix and the movie RIP! A Remix Manifesto.

One main topic that was covered in Lessig and the movie is "fair use"; it is never discussed for long, but it is definitely touched upon. I liked how the movie cut off the soundtrack to make its point that there is a limit to how much you can get away with when using fair use as an excuse, even if you are using it to make an argument.

The use of Creative Commons is another link I made between the movie and the book, Lessig has been making allusions to them throughout the book, and is pushing for more use of them. RIP! discussed it shortly if I'm not mistaking.

The whole idea of economies can be linked between Lessig and the movie; Lessig speaks of sharing and commercial economies, RIP! speaks of the economy of things versus the economy of ideas. I found it interesting when the movie said something along the lines of "we won't be needing corporations (record companies) anymore"; that was the opposite of Lessig who believes that a balance can be found between the extremes of our society, and that this balance is what will keep us moving forward.

Blog #11

The basic distinction I found between the sharing and commercial economy was the use of money in social transactions. Lessig tells us that in a commercial economy people expect to have some exchange of money, as he says, it would be weird if there wasn't. A sharing economy revolves around a certain relationship we have with the individual we deal with; a friend, a lover, a neighbor, are the examples Lessig uses, where money would bring awkwardness into the relationship. The example he discussed of the young man in the plane was very interesting, where a sharing economy can be created between two individuals who don't necessarily have any connections; the young man did not rip DVDs to sell them, rent them, or make any kind of money off of them; he rips them for himself and does not expect money to share them.

The examples Lessig uses were very helpful in making me understand the different ways in which commercial and sharing economies could appear. The small differences between commercial economies Amazon, Netflix, and Google, and the different expectations we have from each website; and the wide range of sharing websites that have appeared on the NET.

Lessig spends a few pages discussing Wikipedia, its creation, and its popularity. I enjoyed his question of "why do people contribute to this community with no compensation for their time?"; the answer being that people share their knowledge, they do so to better the community they are a part of and in exchange will gain knowledge from some other volunteer. His distinction between "me-regarding" and "thee-regarding" sharing economies is important as well; some of the interactions we have are for our own betterment, but in some cases we choose to do things to help out others rather than ourselves.

Much like the Read/Only and Read/Write Communities he discussed earlier in his book, Lessig insists on the fact that the commercial and sharing economies are not to be taken out of context, studied all on their own; the two are complementary of each other, both must be taken into account. I believe this is important for his main argument, we must learn to live with both cultures and both economies, we do not have to choose one or the other, but integrate both in the way we live our lives.

Blog #10

Since I used the example of Elephant Love Medley for a previous Blog, I would keep that link flowing to this blog. The song heard in Moulin Rouge is a already a collage of other songs, so I thought it would be a good song to use when discussing Remixes.
Searching through YouTube, I found an AMV, which links perfectly with Lessig's comments on the importance of Remix in a community setting; the time that is spent by individuals on each of these videos. I would never have the patience to piece together such short pieces of a wide variety of Animes; and as Lessig writes "the aim of these creators is to learn. It is in part to show off. It is in part to create works that are strikingly beautiful. The work is extremely difficult to do well in the creative industries" (77).



This remix (and for that matter most remixes) connects to the idea of media collage that Lessig discusses on page 70. I found it interesting when he writes "collage with physical objects is difficult to do well and expensive to spread broadly. Those barriers either kept many away from this form of expression, or channeled collage into media that could be remixed cheaply" (70). In that point, he states that many individuals remix music rather than film, but when going through YouTube, many creators work with both film and music now-a-day which makes it incredibly interesting to look at. He continues with the idea of collages when he writes "whether text or beyond text, remix is collage; it comes from combining elements of RO culture; it succeeds by leveraging the meaning created by the reference to build something new" (76). The video I chose remixes Elephant Love Medley and then a variety of movie clips, not just from one Anime, but from a dozen.

Looking through comments on a few remixes on YouTube, I found Lessig's remarques on comments perfectly illustrated, there are the simple comments along the lines of "awesome" and "this is EPIC!!!", the ones that critique video and sound, and the trolls "who live for the fights that they can gin up in these spaces" (64). This doesn't apply to the video I chose, which has only positive feedback, but it was very interesting to see the different comments from video to video.

Blog #9

I was glad to find that Lessig's writing style was easier to read than Miller's. It might have to do with the stories of individuals being discussed, where I can imagine it being me in their situation. It was a more enjoyable read.

I feel that the introduction is setting up the question of 'who has the copyrights to a song?' and 'how far do these rights to ownership go?' If Prince in the background, barely perceptible, is a violation and the smallest samples used and reused are an infringement on an artist's copyright, how do we know how far to go? Lessig relays a couple stories with different impacts and outcomes, but it all revolves around someone creating a whole new product using the inspiration of past songs, movies, books, etc.

RW stands for Read/Write culture, a culture where we can listen, read, see something and rework it into a whole new creation. It's a culture of participation, one person puts something out in the world and then the crowd comes back with a modified version.
The RO culture is a Read Only culture, one in which all we can do is listen to a song, watch a movie, but in no way reuse the elements found in them, they are the property of their creators.
In my understanding, these two cultures are important in illustrating Lessig's argument because we seem to become a Read Only culture where no elements of a song can be used instead of turning into a Read/Write culture where everything could be shared and creativity would blossom. Lessig wants us to realize the two options we have and the elements (like Sony) that stop us from reaching our full potential.

Sousa wanted to extend copyright to protect artists, not to gain a grip on the freedom of a society, Lessig writes

"Sousa didn't believe that every use of culture should be regulated. Indeed, he thought it ridiculous to imagine a world where it was 'unlawful to get together and sing.' That part of culture [...] must be left unregulated, Sousa believed, even if another part of culture [...] needed to be regulated more" (32).

I believe Lessig uses Sousa as an example to show that a balance can be found between no copyright and too much copyright. When he writes of Sony's lawsuit for a Prince Song that would not be downloaded and would make no impact on Prince's or Sony's income he shows that this control is going too far. In the story of the Creative Commons Colombia he lets us know that with very little copyright, the outcome is just as good, artists retain their name and are part of constant creation and reinvention.