Friday 7 June 2013
Cultures and Copyrights
The “Everything is a Remix”1 videos were excellent in demonstrating what is basically at steak at the moment. Kirby pointed out how things have changed from good intention to bad intention. Those copyright laws were introduced for the purpose of helping the creators to generate their development’s costs and most importantly they had the intention of Common Good. This is very essential to the continuity of major advances on existing ideas. Kirby displayed so many important examples which they truly fit in this sense of building on existing idea for further advancement such as improving the steam engine and the Henry Ford’s invention of Model T vehicles. Henry Ford did not invent the Assembly line, Interchangeable parts, and the Automobile but he copied, transformed and combined all those elements to get to his invention. Kirby finally points out how the system of law values ideas as assets totally ignoring the “nature of creativity”2 threatening the culture system to fail. He is a person who really needs support, lots of it, since he is touching on a very hot subject the domain of the most powerful of corporations. According to Miller “The world’s Culture Structures are dominated by nine Corporations: General Electric, Bertelsmann, Time Warner, News Corporation, Sony, Liberty Media, Disney, Viacom and NBC. They own 85 percent of world music, all the major Hollywood studios, most satellite and cable services, much of book and magazine publishing and a vast array of broad-cast TV.”3 Highlighting what at steak was also pointed out by Jenkins in the article “There is an enormous demand right now for public intellectuals who can help the public, policy makers and industry alike understand the stakes in these power struggles. In order to play that role, we will need visibility address large and diverse publics, credibility to get our ideas heard in the corridors of power, accessibility to ensure that our perspectives are clearly understood and widely embraced and pragmatism to develop solutions that acknowledge the legitimate interest of all stake holders.”4 The struggle to produce a productive dialogue with the media industries will be greater and will not ease up in the future. I think that YouTube would not have survived till now without being purchased by Google. Even though YouTube was a success form day one but the threat of fighting these giants was never far from happening. YouTube created a new public domain as it was highlighted “It is not about the video. It’s about creating a community around the video”5 and it is very true. The whole world is somehow connected to this site in a way, checking out certain events or to enjoy a laugh on something foolish being the center of world circulation. In conclusion, I realize how important is to balance common culture and commerce culture, in other word putting restrictions and copyright restrictions so it will not transform the common to commercial dominated by greed.
Reference:
1 Kirby, Ferguson, “Everything is a Remix”, http://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/25380454
2 Kirby, Ferguson, “Everything is a Remix”, http://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/25380454
3 Toby Miller, “A view from a fossil,” International Journal of Cultural Studies 7, no. 1(2004): 55-65
4 Henry, Jenkins, “The cultural logic of media convergence,” International Journal of Culture Studies 7, no. 1 (March 2004): 33-43
5 Lucas, Hilderbrand, “Youtube: Where Culture Memory and Copyright Converge,” Film Quarterly 61, no. 1 (Fall 2007): 48-57
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One thing I really liked about the "Everything is a Remix" documentary is how Kibry defined creativity as copying, transforming and combining previous material to "create" new material. It provoked the idea that every story has been told, every melody has been played. I think the internet is the cure for this notion, as we are exposed to new and original material from many different cultures and walks of life. What I think will happen eventually is that an idea or thought, or as Kirby explains it a co-discovery, will start a copyright war and court order to cease the idea of patent so that we can advance our technology or whatever as a global recognition instead of having a select few work on it and evolve it slowly for profit.
ReplyDeleteAs Wilson Mizner once said, "If you steal from one author, it's plagiarism; if you steal from many, it's research". People like Ford observe society and listen intently to seek out the significant needs and demands of the culture he targets. Without these ideas, he would not be able to successfully draw an efficient, cheap but quality design. All businesses work like this. Their marketing departments seek out ideas from consumers and competition to perform at their best standards. YouTube is just another method that these marketing departments use to collect data to determine a significant factor that should be included within their next 'hit' product. Copyrights I believe only are truly effective when one takes on the entire collaboration of data put together by another and claims it as one's own. Besides that, the individualized data provided by YouTube is all up for grabs.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Wilson Mizner, with his concept that "stealing from one author is considered plagiarism, but stealing it from many is research." This idea is evident to businesses as it is with students in universities/colleges. Students "copy, transform, and combine" previous ideas to come up with solid presentations and/or papers, that they call their own. As you have explained, Copyrights are effective, but are also needed when one is taking the data from another and attempting to use it as one's own. However, as Kirby Ferguson argued, this idea is and has been ignored: the products or ideas that are re-imaged, reproduced, and re-distributed are not original ideas, but are advances.
DeleteKirby Ferguson's "Everything is a Remix" videos were very fun and interesting. It is crazy how it people enjoy something they with donate there own money for the continuation of the process. Everything is a Remix is a great example. He shows his followers stuff that consumers don't always see or hear. Movies being based on movies (Is that very creative)!! Sometimes I feel like some movies go way to overboard with this such a Paranormal Activity. Was the first one even that great to get a sequel! By having this it could even ruin movies and songs. After seeing the funny and successful Hangover 1, seeing the next 2 might have ruined the experience of that first one.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Kirby’s “Everything is a Remix” displayed several good examples of major advances on existing ideas and was very informative and interesting to watch before doing the readings. The whole idea of coping, transforming and combining can really be seen in new music, movies and products these days. So many songs sample lyrics and instrumentals from older songs, and likewise for new movies copying ideas from movies decades ago. I agree the best thing to happen to Youtube was that Google bought it.
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