Aug 05 2008
Week 3 Seminar: Copyright, Creativity & The Creative Commons
This week please read these items:
[X] Lawrence Lessig, “Preface”, Introduction”, “Piracy”, “Conclusion” and “Afterward” from Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. New York: Penguin Press, 2004, pp. xiii-xvi, 1-79, & 257-306. (The link will open the entire book as a PDF, but you’re only required to read the page span indicated. Of course, you’re welcome to read it all if you have time! The full book is in the library is you prefer to read hardcopy.)
[X] Sam Howard-Spink, "Grey Tuesday, Online Cultural Activism and the Mash-up of Music and Politics." First Monday 9.10, 2004.
And please listen to this presentation:
[X] Lawrence Lessig, ‘Final Free Culture Lecture’, Stanford University, 31 January 2008. (53 minutes, video file)
Last week Henry Jenkins and J.D. Lasica gave us some grounding in the way that cultural interaction and production have changed in recent years, especially in the context of digital media. Building upon these ideas, this week we’re turning to the work of Lawrence Lessig who has been called, among many other things, the Elvis of cyberspace law! Lessig is a passionate crusader for a legal system which reinforces and encourages creativity, rather than locking creativity down (which is what the MPAA [Motion Picture Association of America] and RIAA [Recording Industry of America Association] and their anti-piracy rhetoric platform are doing in Lessig’s view). In the excerpts from Free Culture that you’re reading, pay particular attention to the way culture has changed in terms of ownership and in terms of what that entails for creativity and cultural production. I’d encourage you to also explore the websites of the Creative Commons organisation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Lawrence Lessig’s own website. Lessig’s book is a great read, so if you have time you may want to dip into some of the other chapters, too. You’re also reading an article by Sam Howard-Spink which explores the cultural reaction to ‘The Grey Album’, and the reaction when copyright holders tried to remove the album from circulation. (If you’re interested, you can download the Grey Album using bittorent via links here, or watch the Grey Video – a music video featuring one of the remixes from the Grey Album.)
When reading, keep these questions in mind:
[1] How does the rhetoric of ‘piracy’ work in the debate(s) surrounding digital cultural production and creativity?
[2] How has copyright as an idea evolved over time? (Think about the politics behind the way copyright works.)
[3] How have large corporations and copyright holders reacted to new media forms and new media technologies in the past two decades?
[4] What does ‘Grey Tuesday’ tell you about the way individuals react to the current copyright system? How representative do you think this attitude towards copyright is amongst young people today?
[5] What does an organisation like the Creative Commons hope to achieve in terms of copyright and creativity?
[Image Credit: ‘culture is not a crime’ by Dawn Endico CC BY]
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16 Responses to “Week 3 Seminar: Copyright, Creativity & The Creative Commons”
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Ok! Let’s kick start things!
Copyright is a very controversial issue nowadays. People, particularly teenagers, have been sued thousands of dollars because they have downloaded copyrighted music/videos illegally. The length of copyright only existed for 32 years and no more between years 1790 to 1978. However, it feels like the length of copyright has become infinite now.
As stated in Lessig’s reading, copyright only had publishing as its concern in the past. But it’s not the case now, instead, copyright has BOTH publishing and building on or transforming a work on the other, as its concern. This raises the question on whether copyright should be played down as the free culture seems to diminishing. Given that we live in a world of technological advances, it is really difficult to stop someone from remixing other people’s work. Thus, I strongly support Creative Common’s (CC) aims of grassroots movements and creativity, not ‘theft’. By actually encouraging authors to free up parts they do not need, it allows others to build upon their work, which ensures the flow of creativity. Thus, ensuring the continuity of a free culture! Lessig also mentions that “free culture is our past, but it will only be our future if we change the path we are right on”. I guess CC might be the only hope for that change to occur.
I mentioned in class that I was skeptical about others remixing my work (if any) for fear that it might be used for not-so-nice reasons (such as politics or a sleazy website). However, since I am actually going to support CC’s movements, it would not do any harm to be a little more open minded towards such issues.
Any contradicting thoughts?
I wonder how ‘culture’ has changed in meaning since the inception of digital technology. It’s certainly used slightly differently to how it was early last century (Raymond Williams talks about this in his Introduction to Keywords, a book which he says was motivated out of noticing a rather sudden change in the use of the word ‘culture’ while he was away from Cambridge during WWII – I won’t bore you with those details here, but it was very interesting for me to see a fairly recent example of a shift in meaning). The meaning of ‘culture’ seems to have broadened even further than in Williams’ day; we now include the kind of works and entertainment produced and disseminated by the internet, just as much as literary products, films of all kinds, and music from classical to contemporary. Digital technology even embeds these traditional practices and objects into new forms, such as books going online, film and music being digitally remastered. And distribution – ‘culture’ (by this I mean the products) is received and sent out in such different ways to before. The speed of transferring data is so phenomenal now, space and time (I’m having trouble not writing ‘the space-time continuum’ there, but I’m refraining) have shrunken even as markets have turned global. Thinking in basic terms, this means communication has changed dramatically. And communication, in one sense, is simply sharing. So we see these new practices (cultural practices, perhaps?) of which the mash up is the epitome.
But like we discussed in class, there’s probably a longer history of this kind of practice than we realise – borrowing others’ creative works and ideas, that is. Sharing shouldn’t mean no recognition or ownership, of course. But it does seem pretty ridiculous how far out all the copyright laws have gone. Changes the idea of ownership a bit, maybe.
Incidentally, I heard a Girl Talk song on Triple J last night…I’m interested to know the ins and outs of the process of selling and/or distributing, if they don’t pay according to copyright…
I just re-read what I posted, and realised I kind of lost my point…so just a short add-on:
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I guess if I’m to follow that idea that the meaning of culture has changed in parallel to technology, and the normal (?) practice of sharing creative works and ideas has been amped up, then a logical conclusion might be that regulative practices should adapt to this new way of interacting with the world. Support rather than suppress.
Or maybe you saw a different point emerging from my previous post
Kiri, and everyone, you might find this article from the New York Times about Girl Talk of interest: Steal This Hook? D.J. Skirts Copyright Law.
It’s amazing how technology has lead to an explosion in creative freedom. Now people are able to make a mish-mash of almost everything. Just as democracy has given people a freedom of speech, technology has given people a freedom in creative expression. It’s funny how a culture has been formed to the extent that there is a redistribution of goods. This culture formed by technology is a new form of communication, a new form of literacy for all of us – through the remixes of songs, recreation of the culture around us. Its binds the past with the present (think the Grey Album), such that history is revived or ensuring history’s continuity.
However, it has come to a point where copyright laws have become too stringent. If the idea of remixing has come a long way, why have copyright laws only acted now and not earlier? By being less rigid about copyright laws, it would definitely give a chance to people who wish to make it big in the music industry, such as Girl Talk. This would lead to a more vibrant culture, as we will see many unseen and unknown talent emerging. But of course, one must never forget to acknowledge the sources of their remixes!
I think we present a pretty united front on this one, in favour of a more relaxed copyright system. The remix and reuse of old materials has been shown by Lessig to be an integral part of our culture (think his praise of ‘Walt Disney’ style creativity, which in the face of the Bono/Mickey Mouse lawsuit to extend copyright I found quite amusing). But had Walt still been alive, would he push for copyright extension? Probably. As we discussed, people get rather cagey about intellectual property when money is involved. So if they ever find a way to revive the human popsicle that is Walt, you can rest assured he’ll be wanting his royalty cheque.
On the subject of GirL Talk, I read the article and found again in the opinion of Lawyer Barry Slotnick the kind of taken for granted attitude that seems to characterise one side of the copyright argument. The idea that one act is creative whilst another is ’substituting someone elses creativity for your own’ is absurd. Greg Gillis AKA Girl Talk took available cultural resources and crafted them together in a creative way, as everyone in the rock music industry has been doing since its inception, which it owed to blues.
In music land, or certainly in guitar land, it is a well known truism that any combination of chords that one could possibly come up with has been created before. So to claim ownership to something as simple as a riff (the kind of short snippets used by Girl Talk) is a ludicrous as trying to copyright the A chord, which by the way the current law is heading might not be a bad idea.
After reading from the article posted by Tama, I was thinking what “fair use” actually means? D.J. Girl Talk claims that he mixes the copyrighted songs under the terms of fair use, so he doesn’t have to pay for using these songs. The lawyer from Leob & Leob (in the article) says fair use means commenting on other people’s works but not mixing them to create something that can claim to be Girl Talk’s own creation.
I do not have an answer for the definition of fair use. But I guess it’s definitely okay to quote excerpts from other songs to create a new song? To me it sounds fun. And just like what Walt Disney did, he recreated Brothers Grimm’s story and use these cartoons to make money. I am not sure whether some of the implicaiton of these cartoons are good for children, but these recreated stories did provide us spaces for discussion and appreciation for Brothers Grimm. We wouldn’t forget the original author just because some other people has remixed their work. We can still recognize Eminem’s voice (just to name one) even his songs are being mixed with others’ to be a new song of D.J. Girl Talk’s. I guess it’s just another form of promotion and advertisement.
For me, the point raised by Lawrence is the crux of the issue. To distinguish one production as creative, and the other as not because it is explicitly borrowing from previous works, is a narrow view that doesn’t understand creative processes. An artist like Girl Talk is making use of previous samples in original ways, the presence of these other artists in his music doesn’t make the construction of each song something that’s not original in itself. I mean if hard work is part of a definition of original creativity, spending roughly a day on each minute of the album (as Gillis claims) is probably more time than many pop artists spend in the studio (speculative, I know, but probably true). And the history of creative production should be food enough for thought. Whether implicit or explicit, borrowing of various kinds has always been a part of music, and I think could be identified in art and writing as well.
Additionally, artists who are using samples are generally using something recognisable, and not trying to pass it off as their own creation. I think if I was in that position of having my work sampled in such short snippets as Girl Talk and others have, it would be a compliment. I would only be annoyed if somebody took like a wonderful chord progression or melody, or sentence or plot, that I had come up with, and passed it off as their own.
Just to begin with – I strongly support the ideas promoted by groups such as Creative Commons. I think it is incredibility important for that this generation of film makers/musicians/writers etc be able to adapt and change works from the past to create new media, just as each generation has done before hand. It seems to me to be very unfair to stop a practice that has been occurring for decades, just to make more money. But I do believe that anything that is used (be that samples of music or film, or just inspiration) should be acknowledged.
I agree with Kiri, that just because an artist doesn’t create the sound/film that they use in a project, doesn’t make it any less work. I would think that finding the right images/footage/music/sounds that work together to create a new piece of media would be more difficult and time consuming then creating it from scratch. Remix culture is not simply mixing media together. It builds on the meanings of those original pieces to comment on them and create new meanings. This is why it is so important.
Perhaps (although I’m not at all sure) it would help if, like with quotes, there was a certain limit to how much of a song could by used under ‘fair use’ before permission had to be asked of the creator (eg. a certain percentage). It would give some clarity in terms of what is ‘fair use’ in terms of music and sampling. But idea this would probably end up going the same way as in publishing, where authors are being asked to seek permission no matter how long the quote.
And just another thing, the website Total Recut (http://www.totalrecut.com/) has heaps of information about remix culture – the section in resources about remix culture contains heaps of links including information about fair use and copyright – in case anyone wanted to find out more!
After reading all these comments, I’ve reached a bit of a culmination. The talk about fluidity of ownership of ideas and the brothers Grimm got me thinking about something we touched on in class, how the brothers just went around collecting the folk stories from the villages of Germany or Europe, I don’t know how extensively they travelled. Which in turn gets me thinking back to undergrad units, I don’t remember which exactly, but all the talk about the new era of distribution and so on, exemplified by the internet. How before the printing press, replication of ideas and transmission of culture was done at a one to one level, and consequently there was room for changes to the source material each time someone transferred it.
Then we enter the era of the printing press where once something is authored it is pretty much concrete. And the authors would receive monetary recompense for their work, as would the guy with the printing press. To protect their money we get copyright.
Now however with these changes in attitudes both from the people at the distribution end and the people getting all on the piracy, and the effect of changes in technology, like samplers, there’s a big case of people feeling ripped off by each other.
Sorry, I feel like I’m starting to reiterate earlier said things. Um, like everyone else has said, CC seems to be doing a decent job of breaking down the problems of modern copyright, of which I’d say there are many. At the risk of ranting, half the Beatles are dead, the other 2 have more money than they know what to do with, yet Sgt. Peppers still sells for 30 bucks. Or to continue the Walt Disney point made by Laurence, if/when he gets thawed, can you really say he has a case to ask for the royalty cheque? Well, maybe, but only because of the gray area brought about by him being frozen. My point is, if it’s not lost in the rant, who is copyright really serving these days? I’m thinking especially of music, where for some reason I don’t agree with or understand really, the authors typically sign away their rights to the music in exchange for distribution. If anyone could give me a history of why this is the case I’d welcome it.
So with the ease of internet distribution, authors really don’t need to sign away their rights and consequently this opens up the world to something like CC, where things can be discarded as seen fit by the author, who stays in relative control over the fate of their work. The CC version 2 Tama mentioned in class seems especially exciting, in that you can legitimately ask for a cut of any eventual proceeds that may come of your original creation.
Also, as a tangent, like Alex said, a piece of art is always de-then-re-constructing previously existing works, commenting on, or placing in a new context, and so on and so on.
So look at this in terms of music, keeping in mind Alex’s point and Laurence’s one about riffs. There is an existing harmonic structure from which people can extract chords and melodies to write music, so is it really much more of a stretch to extract these chords in a certain order, with certain timing, a riff if you will, and work something new and unique from them? Just a point of consideration really.
Oh, and I’ve noticed we’ve not really applied this to academic thought/work, but I will try now. Alex had an idea, as did Laurence, and now I’ve merged them somewhat, and I would say that what I did took some merit, and I’ve made a substantive contribution to the collective understanding (hopefully). Which is a process that causes the flow of information and discovery of new stuff. I guess my point is, if copyright were applied as stringently to academia as it is to music and film these days (or at least in such a public manner) then where would the researchers be?
Since it’s been mentioned a couple of times, you guys might interested to look at the CC+ licensing model we talked a bit about, which mixes explicit CC licensing (ie giving away what the creator doesn’t need to keep) with an explicit license if others want to use that creative work commercially. Also, on Australian group who are using CC to license some of their music, and using the wave of publicity that comes with that to its fullest effect, is the Ancient Free Gardeners.
I’m not sure how I feel about having my academic work remixed in such a way… I guess if it’s not for commercial purposes… But yes, some very relevant points going down all over the shop. I tend to agree with Chris that copyright has stopped serving the interests of creativity and is now less about the love, more about the money.
I think what Chris has said about copyright being applied to academia was addressed by Lessig, with the conclusion being that even within the supposedly liberal give and take of the academic world things are tightening up as monopolies with monopoly sized budgets to hire big shot lawyers gradually take over the independent publishers who used to be the sole purveyors of fine academic writings. Thusly Lessig finds he cannot include the range of others academic work that he had previously enjoyed access to. I think again, this has already been touched on.
Chris also raises the very pertinent point that modern notions of copyright evolved after the invention of movable type and the printing press, when ideas really achieved some kind of solid form. Previous oral traditions had no such sense of ownership over ideas. So if you really want to go right back, you could say the original pirates were those first printers and ‘authors’ who took down and printed what were folk tales and other common knowledge items. But of course, back then their was no notion of piracy, except the ‘argh!’ kind.
Come to think of it, in the past, copyright wasn’t implemented probably due to the fact that all people wanted was for oral traditions to be preserved. After that, all people wanted was just to protect their work. However, since technology came into place, people have realised that they actually can earn money out of copyright. As what Chris mentions, creative spirals downwards while money is the dominating factor.
Copyright in the academic area has already been implemented. For example, if we fail to cite the author’s work, we suffer an immediate failure.
Having just read Lawrence’s comment about remixing academic work, I’m imaging all our essays mixed together in the latest Girl Talk style…
My question is – is the same thing?
While there’s no doubt that it would probably be superior to just one piece of written work, can the written words be altered and re-shaped in the way that music, images and film can be?
Approximately a third of every psychology paper is made up of the introduction, which consists of citing previous works and background information about an experiment/case. There is no new information by the author in this section and no comment on the other works. This could be deemed a ‘remixing’ of previous works, to create a new piece. All works are cited in the paper. Is it the citations that make it ‘academic’? Would artists such as Girl Talk be considered more ‘academic’, if they ‘cited’ their sources?
I think I may have confused myself (and all of you) more then I have cleared up anything…
Same as Alex, I cannot quite relate our academic work with Girl Talk’s remixes… I guess we cannot say Girl Talk academic since his work is not for that purpose, but if we can gather academic sources to make our essay look more academic, why can’t Gillis gather these songs to make something new? As I said before, the new works wouldn’t make people forget who the original author were, like Walt Disney and Brothers Grimm (though Brothers Grimm actually collected and rewritted the stories). And I am also quite impressed for him to spend a day for each minute of his album. We can say Girl Talk as another Walt Disney and Brothers Grimm, but will he become another “copywrite freak” if he can earn big money from his remixing work?