Stephen Colbert is a giant 🙂
I watched the Remix Manifesto but have to admit that I never really bought into the momentum that it was trying to build despite the big pushes it was trying to make:
1.Here is this guy GirlTalk and people have a superfun time at his rave/parties, with a bunch of talk that it is only possible for them to party to music with the creativity and freedom of him sampling other existing content.
2.Ordinary people are getting sued big money by cold lawyers trying to cash in on stolen, downloaded content. Some people are getting sued ridiculous amounts of money by the faceless corporations when all it is – is just some songs for CDs. And maybe a movie here or there.
3.Brazil refuses to concede to copyright and used this to manufacture their own synthetic drug to help manage Aids. Without having to pay rights to the parties that developed the drug, their Aids medication is incredibly cheaper. They have a politician that jams out, and during one of these great sessions, the movie asks if this beautiful scene is the face of a world free from copyright? Where ideas are available to everybody.
4.If Mickey Mouse is so good from stealing other classic content, why can’t everybody steal? And especially – why can’t anybody steal back from Mickey and the giant corporation of Disney?
These are my thoughts aside from this movie’s subjective take:
a.I have not paid a penny to Blockbuster for years after finding that I can download movies, put them on a USB stick, and watch them on my PlayStation 3 for free, I used to rent movies all the time for $7 each. Pretty much all of the Blockbusters and Rogers Videos have shut down in the last couple years as a result of people downloading content.
b.I’ve spent maybe $40 on music in the last 5 years, and have never gone through more musical content in my life. $40 used to be 2 CDs. Where is this money going now? What kind of advertising dollars do websites like “Isohunt” generate?
c.Have you ever had a joke stolen from you? I have since I’m a guy that creates them, and it’s frustrating hearing your own joke from somebody, then that somebody giving the credit for it to somebody else. I’ve heard my own stories told back to me from other people. I own those stories from having lived them and people are taking credit for them?
d.What about when Facebook and Twitter were about to claim ownership of the photos that we post on their sites? And everybody freaked out? We’d still have the rights to use our own photos, but this way Facebook and Twitter could be free to use them too. And everybody freaked out… no? Maybe I don’t have all the information on that, but isn’t that hypocritical of the public saying that the studio’s content should be free to use?
e.Why stop at music samples, songs, and movie and television clips for copyright? What about clothes? Where anybody can slap a Nike symbol on any shoe and it’d be impossible to navigate shoes available for sale on eBay? What’s real and what’s fake? Imagine a world where WalMart would be free to sell Quicksilver jeans for $20? Anybody could use anybody else’s logo and style, and our fashion status’ would be more skewed? Wouldn’t that creativity and freedom set us free from all of this crap socioeconomic status that we have to deal with in our society? Where people would buy expensive high-fashion items simply for the quality and not for the visible brand name? Haha
f.If there is no copyright law at all – can I download the new Kanye West album, add in a sound effect every once in a while that is hardly noticeable and then burn and sell a ton of CDs? Should people really be able to profit off of other people’s content?
g.If a recording artist/studio/production company makes no money off of general public song sales, and then suddenly nothing off of copyright, and then any commercial can play any song for their product… is this what we are going for?
h.Context. If we create a story and characters, shouldn’t we have some kind of ability to control their context? What if porno got their hands on every character out there? What if what we make is taken completely out of context and ruined/cheapened in our own eyes?
i.If Universal Studios makes a Miracle Man movie, can Warner Brothers make the sequel if they’re quick enough?
j.If production companies wouldn’t have to buy copyright use from other production companies, what would that mean?
k.With copyright law as it is, is it preventing new ideas from getting out? If there were no copyright law at all, would new ideas continue to get out at the same rate? Would creativity go up or down?
l.How much energy would go into creating and sharing new movies/shows/music/productions if it would take less energy to just blatantly steal and remix other stuff? What if there is no profit to be had to reward the great ideas that work? Because the bad ideas usually lose a LOT of money.
End Part:
We must adjust to a new age of content, that is clear.
Obviously it is nice to see a bunch of young people going crazy for music and say that the moments are only made possible by the creativity and freedom of no copyright law. There are three realities behind this: As shown in the movie; would it really be fair for GirlTalk to pay over $400,000 for each of his songs due to copyright? (NOPE). Is it right that GirlTalk got to play at Coachella for ripped off samples? (Probably I guess, I say we let DJs do what they do). Would the young people be partying with un-sampled music? (Yup).
Think about the mother in a modest house getting sued hundreds of thousands of dollars for making herself two CDs. That’s ridiculous. So therefore, it is obvious that something must be done to update an outdated policy on copyright, but it is also obvious that it is a complex issue with an inherent slippery slope if we buy into the idea of it too much. We must do something, and we must stop vilifying the process of downloading content that we are pretty much ALL doing.
So yeah, and despite what this movie implies – I still see a LOT of creativity and freedom of expression in the world even with copyright law as it is right now. I don’t know about you, maybe I’m crazy 🙂
Feel free to dissect any of my random notes.
Is there a better way to end a post on available content?
Mr.Fiege 