There are many connections between Lawrence Lessig's book and the documentary RIP! A Remix Manifesto. Specifically, I saw three key points that Lessig and the documentary centered around.
The documentary's focus centered on the musician "Girl Talk", while exploring the ideas of copyright, remixes, and intellectual property. The first key comparison that I saw between this film and Lessig was the belief that an amateur remixer should not be regulated by copyright law, due primarily to the creative nature of the work, and all around practicality of situation. Lessig shows his position when he states "At a minimum, Congress should exempt this class of creative work from the requirements of clearing rights to create" (3008-34). The documentary revealed their view of how copyright law through comedically teasing the audience with how they cannot play certain songs, or how the film itself is infringing copyright laws.
The second key similarity explored how historically, the people in power are the ones that feel the need to control and dictate how specific creative works are used. Both Lessig and the documentary talked about key findings, such as the VCR recording televisions, through which both argue that it is time for another change in our current practices. Lessig believes that if specific steps are taken, for example, if peer to peer file sharing is decriminalized, there would still be a way for the artists to track they work and earn royalties without impractical legal battles.
The last connection that I made between Lessig and the documentary was the call to action for the current society. It was intriguing how both talked about the numbers and shift towards this new creative world, where remixing is allowed, and copying, or badly remixing, is what gets users in trouble. The documentary showed how certain bands released they album and other works completely free.
I found the part in your blog about how the people in power are the ones trying to control the flow of media through copyright. This reminds me of when music was making the transition to being recorded on devices such as records. The big wigs of the music industry didn't want this but it ended up being a successful loss because it gave birth to a extremely lucrative career for them.
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ReplyDeletePeople in positions of power, especially with copyright law, hold too much control over creating culture. It is really a kind of tiny cultural imperialism, restricted to certain sects of new media (RIAA, MPAA..etc). It is sad but who can blame these greedy guys for trying to squeeze as much money out of a system that has been making them rich for years? It has to be only a matter of time until people that have grown up digital can oust the old copyright law regime.