Monday, January 17, 2011
Remix
Larry Lessig in the first chapter of his book "Remix" talks about how culture has changed from a read-write (RW) culture to a read-only (RO) culture. He, also, discusses what is considered plagarism. Lessig uses John Philip Sousa as an example and his trip to congress to protest the use of recording devices for music. Sousa was concerned that recording devices would eliminate amatuer music-- such as people singing outside or around the house. He was afraid that amatuer music would be replaced by these recording devices. He was also concerned that people would stop attending concerts and only listen to music through these recording devices and the profit that he made from his concerts and ticket sales would cease to exist. I think this is something that as a culture we experience with every new technology that hits the market. When the radio appeared, musicians were concerned that people would stop buying their recordings, newspapers were afraid that people would stop buying newspapers, because they could hear the news faster on the radio. Same with television, the radio was concerned that they would go out of business, because this new medium could deliver the news and stories with the same speed, as well as with pictures. Then the internet came along and all mediums were afraid that they would disappear, because the internet could deliver all of these features in one swift click of a button. Below is a link to a speech that Lessig gave that I had to watch for a previous tech writing class and journalism. He talks about Sousa again, as well as a new term of today called mixing-- where the younger generation is taking clips of music and clips of tv shows or news pieces and making their own video clip and posting it on the web. Lessig poses the question is this plagarism or stealing other people's work? --From what I gather from his lecture that it isn't, it is taking other people's art and molding it to make their own. Kind of like what Lethem was stating in his article, "The Ectasy of Influence"-- that no idea is really original, but rather copied over and over in different ways and different styles. Kind of like Obama's campaign video (as seen below) against Hilary Clinton in the 2008 election. Where he took a clip from the movie "1984" and applied it to his message of change for the United States.
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I actually had read this while I was posting my blog post. I really liked your entry and all of the examples you used. I thought the sue of the two videos at the end really tied in your point that you gathered from the selection we had to read. Reading this again, I also noticed that you brought Lethem into this as well and originally I didn't make that connection. I really enjoyed reading this post.
ReplyDeleteI really liked what you had to say about Lessig's argument and I am glad you added the clip from Obama's campaign. That really summed up the whole point of all of this controversy over copyright, plagiarism, and originality. I mean, if the president of the United States can take a clip from something he himself did not manufacture and "remix" it to fit into the aspects of his campaign, can't anyone do this?!
ReplyDeleteAwesome examples of newspapers, radio, television, and the internet. It is so true that when each of these entered the market the previous media vehicle became concerned with losing followers. It seems like each new media vehicle is in itself a remix to the previous one, especially many of the newer forms of multimedia.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post and I think the clips you added give something extra to your post. I totally agree with the idea of new technology has been constantly changing the media. To even think that we could have grown up in a time without the internet is almost unthinkable in today's society. I do worry about Sousa's point of view, that concerts and such will soon become obsolete.
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