We’ve discussed in the past Kirby Ferguson’s excellent project Everything is a Remix, which tries to highlight how creativity is almost always derived from elsewhere. We wrote about the first two videos, which covered copyright issues, starting with music and then movies. His latest may be the best yet, as it focuses on inventions, in large part by retelling the Apple story, concerning how it built off the work at Xerox PARC (which in turn built off work at SRC and other places). We actually just talked about this story a few weeks ago, and this video definitely adds to that conversation:
The key point, which critics will undoubtedly skip or gloss over, is that he’s not just saying that copying is good. He’s saying that copying is one part of the very important process of innovation. Copying is a component, but the important part is then taking that copy and doing more with it.
At issue is that some people believe that it’s better to do everything from scratch. But that’s incredibly wasteful, inefficient and too often, limiting. Being able to build on the works of others, to transform them and combine them with other good ideas, that’s where innovation comes from. We’ve pointed this out many times before. The iPhone was a wonderful innovation, but almost all of its technologies could be found elsewhere. It’s just that Apple put them together in a brilliant and user-friendly package. The video shows that the same thing was true of the original Macintosh, which took ideas from elsewhere and put them together in a useful manner. And, as you look back through history you find that it’s true of all sorts of revolutionary and transformative advances in progress, such as the Gutenberg printing press or Henry Ford’s Model-T mass production setup:
Innovation is almost always about remixing. It’s about taking ideas that are already out there, and transforming them and adding to them. And yet, our social and legal policies seem to deny this. They seem to be focused on the myth of “flash of genius,” — of an invention that is brand new and unique. And so we create a system like the patent system, which doesn’t recognize the importance and value of building on the ideas of others in order to continue that process of innovation. And that’s a shame, because it’s holding back progress in dangerous ways. It’s certainly not stopping progress, but what we lose from progress not going as fast as it could is tremendous.
We’ve written a few times in the past about the brilliant musician, Kutiman, who creates astounding musical works through what might be called musical collage — taking bits and pieces he finds on YouTube and mixing them into something amazing and wonderful. From a copyright standpoint, what he’s doing is almost certainly infringement, in some sense, under today’s laws, though thankfully no one is challenging him on that (and Israel, where he’s from, has decent fair use protections). He’s now released his latest work, and while it’s also a musical collage, it’s quite different in nature. Rather than just pull clips from YouTube, he spent a couple months going around Jerusalem, interviewing various local musicians and asking them all to just improvise some music (all around the key of D), and then mixed it together into this amazing sounding song (and wonderful video), called Thru Jerusalem:
I think we can safely say that this (as with his previous works) is really quite an incredible piece of musicianship — but his works are created in a world that copyright law can’t even comprehend, let alone predict. Can you even imagine trying to untangle the “copyright” question on such a song? Thankfully, it seems unlikely that such a question will directly come up with Kutiman’s work, but it very well might come up with other musicians who do something similar or something else new and creative. And do we really want that? Do we want musicians having to worry about “the copyright question” as they create beautiful works such as this?
Jeffrey A. Tucker (of the Mises Institute) recently had the pleasure of viewing Tangled, Disney’s 2010 remake of the Rapunzel story. He gives a brief rundown of the improvements, including:
"[T]he story mercifully leaves out some very strange aspects of the original Brothers Grimm, including the wildly implausible idea that a husband would give up child-rearing rights to his wife’s child in exchange for free access to the neighbor’s lettuce patch."
(It’s amazing how a little hindsight makes free access to a lettuce patch seem less valuable than a human child.)
Of course, Disney (a.k.a. Kaptain Kopyright) has often raided the Brothers Grimm for inspiration, thanks to their stories being in the public domain, something Disney’s own work will likely never be subject to. And while there’s a lot to be said in regards to Disney’s hypocritical plundering of the past, Tucker points out just exactly how much copyright stifles creativity:
"Sometimes 2.0 is just much better than 1.0, and here we see the big problem with intellectual-property protection. It freezes the first release as the only release for up to several generations. Improving and adapting are made against the law. This is not a problem if you use a story that is old enough. But why should society have to wait 100 years to get a better version of the original? Why should we have laws that artificially slow the pace of progress?"
That question is directed at you, copyright maximalists. Why should we have to wait more than a lifetime to improve or adapt an idea? It can’t just be the money, because most ideas don’t generate a lifetime of income. Is it the fear that someone might improve on your idea? Is that the main concern? That the world will move on, forgetting the originator and embracing the "remixer"? Or is it simply a short-sighted and mercenary view that has self-perpetuated into the endless copyright extensions of today?
It’s often argued that extensive copyright protection "fosters creativity," but this "creativity" is often narrowly defined and bound to one person (and their heirs) for 100+ years. Tying down an idea for more than a century fosters nothing more than resentment on both sides of the issue. The creators tend to feel that there is something sacred about an original idea, despite the fact there is no such thing as "original". Those on the outside who wish to build on existing ideas are locked out and no matter how brilliant their take is, it will never see the light of day.
It’s as if certain artists feel that their ideas should exist on an unwavering straight line that runs parallel to their lifetime. While copyright protection theoretically "incentivizes" creativity, in practice it has become nothing more than a legislatively-backed, wholly undeserved pension plan that does nothing more than lock everyone else out of the creative process.
(Quick hat tip to JPM, who shot this post in my direction via evil social behemoth, Facebook.)
Tons of artists now release stems of their music for fans to remix. It’s pretty common to see “remix” contests as well. Still, it’s pretty interesting to see how some bands are taking it even further. Eliot Van Buskirk alerts us to the news that Damon Albarn’s “virtual band” project, The Gorillaz, have teamed up with Korg to offer a special KORG iElectribe Gorillaz Edition for the iPad. The regular iElectribe is just an iPad synthesizer, which people seem to like. But the Gorillaz edition has a different (more fun, more Gorillaz-style) user interface design (making it look like it’s been around the block and run over by a truck or two along the way), along with a ton of presets using music from The Gorillaz’ latest album. So, instead of just giving people stems and telling them to remix, this is almost like an album bundled with its own synth tool in one package. I expect we’ll start seeing things a lot more advanced than this. Why release just a plain old album when you can start to enable your fans to do much more with your music?
One of the common refrains in the comments from some of Techdirt’s biggest critics is that I’m a “piracy supporter.” I’m not sure what to make of such claims, because I don’t actually support or endorse copyright infringement. I don’t partake of it (willingly). I don’t use any file sharing programs for downloading or sharing content. I don’t download unauthorized music or movies. My position is solely from the point of view of the content creator and how they might be able to better engage their audiences and put in place smarter business models. Yet, for some reason, people keep trying to paint me, falsely, as a supporter of “piracy.”
Of course, what I do support is the creation of new and engaging content. What troubles me, is when people try to imply wonderful creative works are somehow not creative because they build on the works of people before them. Of course, that’s silly. All kinds of wonderful creative works you enjoy almost certainly come from near direct copies of things that came before. A lovely demonstration of this is seen in this short clip from the documentary RIP: A Remix Manifesto:
But I still feel that one of the best examples of creative works building on the works of others comes from Kutiman, the Israeli artist who burst on the scene two years ago with his absolutely amazing album Thru You, in which he assembled random clips from around YouTube — without permission — into an entire album that sounds absolutely nothing like its component pieces. Kutiman is the modern conductor, putting together an amazing, involuntary orchestra of players who don’t even know what’s happening. While he’s been somewhat quiet (though, apparently touring the world), Kutiman has just released a brand new track, once again combining various YouTube videos into quite the jazz song, entitled My Favorite Color:
Seeing people’s reactions when they first see the videos really is priceless. They’re amazed as they realize what’s happening. The one that seems to get the most attention (for plenty of good reasons) is the first track off the Thru You album, The Mother of All Funk Chords.
However, when trying to show the power of remixing and building on creativity, I actually think the second song from Thru You can be more instructive. That’s because if you break down a number of the component parts, you realize that some of them just aren’t all that impressive by themselves. Take, for example, trombone part that’s used in the song. When viewed by itself… it’s really nothing special:
Now, put it into the middle of a larger song, with the very accurate (for this discussion) title of This Is What It Became, and you get an incredibly powerful, haunting and moving trombone solo, which comes in at about 43 seconds:
And yet, to hear some people talk about these things, none of this is “creative.” It’s all just “copying.” In some cases it’s outright “piracy.” After all, Kutiman is using the works of others, and doing so entirely without permission. And yet, I have trouble seeing how anyone can legitimately claim that these songs are “piracy” in any real sense of the word. Kutiman is clearly a musician. That he uses a note played by someone else on a YouTube video, and then “plays” it himself, strikes me as no different than playing a keyboard that plays a recorded sounded, or even strumming a guitar. A musician is putting different sounds together to create music. Does it really make a huge difference if that music involves someone making a note from an instrument directly themselves… or by taking the note originally played by someone else and doing something creative and amazing with it?
Is this really the kind of thing that our politicians and copyright defenders mean to outlaw?
I’m not a supporter of copyright infringement or “piracy.” But if this is piracy, then I am a supporter of it. Because this is truly creative works, whether or not it’s built on the works of others.
A few months back, Kirby Ferguson started a fascinating project called Everything is a Remix, highlighting how the concept of “remixing” what came before, and adding additional new elements to it is much, much more common than you would think. The project kicked off late last summer with a video highlighting remix within music, focusing mainly on Led Zeppelin and how many, many of their songs are clearly “remixes” of existing songs:
While it’s taken a while, the second video of the series has now come out, and focuses on remixes in the movie industry, with a key focus on Star Wars:
It’s long been known that George Lucas relied heavily on Joseph Campbell’s works on myths in creating Star Wars, but you might not have known how many specific scenes, characters and elements he appears to have “remixed” from other movies. I’ve cut out a few quick screenshots below, but there are many more in the video:
Some of these are even more clearly take-offs on the originals when you see the video version. For those who think copying is somehow “wrong,” do you now think any less of Star Wars? Or will you come up with some sort of rationalization why this kind of copying and remixing is okay. The point, of course, which will unfortunately be missed by many, is that this is how culture and creativity evolve. Everyone builds off the works of those who came before them. This is a good thing, rather than something to be punished.
The very point of fair use is that it’s supposed to allow for creativity without permission. Even in a society dominated by copyright, at least our courts and regulators recognized the need for creativity built (in part) on what came before, without having to go through the tollbooths of requiring permission to create. However, some recent events have shown how the DMCA and other attempts to beef up copyright law are trying to erode the very notion of fair use without permission.
SinkDeep alerts us to the news that a bunch of DJs are upset after discovering that SoundCloud took down a bunch of the mixes they had hosted on the service. If you’re not familiar with SoundCloud, in the last few years, it has become one of the most popular tools for musicians and DJs to host their music. It offers a really nice toolset for anyone looking to promote their music online (and for others to build apps on top of it). SoundCloud has also been a pretty big supporter of open culture, supporting things like Creative Commons along the way.
I contacted SoundCloud to find out what was going on, and the response was pretty much as I expected. Due to the nature of the copyright world we live in today, the company recently implemented a fingerprinting-type technology, similar to those used by YouTube (ContentID) and MySpace (Audible Magic), which lets copyright holders designate their own works, and which SoundCloud then automatically blocks. While the original link above “blames” SoundCloud for becoming a “walled garden,” that’s not really fair nor accurate. The real problem is the nature of our copyright laws today, that assume infringement over fair use. As we’ve discussed before, copyright law is effectively broken when it sets up fair use as a defense, rather than a proactive right. Fair use should beseen as the default until proven otherwise, if fair use is really (as is claimed) designed to be a pressure valve on copyright law to allow free speech.
Unfortunately, the industry has pushed back on this notion to a huge level. The very crux of the YouTube-Viacom legal fight is really over this issue. As many have noted, in the specifics of the lawsuit, Viacom basically notes that it has no problem with YouTube starting with the exact date that it implemented its ContentID program. In Viacom’s (and much of the entertainment industry’s) interpretation, the DMCA requires such filters. The likely reason that smaller companies like SoundCloud are now implementing filters as well is that they know there’s a half decent chance that the eventual outcome of lawsuits like the Viacom/YouTube fight will mean that a company is required by law to have such things in place.
But, of course, the problem with all of this is that it goes back to creating permission culture, rather than a culture where people freely create. You won’t be able to use these popular or useful tools to build on the works of others — which, contrary to the claims of today’s copyright defenders, is a key component in almost all creativity you see out there — without first getting permission. The systems will try to block it, until you make your case that something is fair use — though many will just not bother. This is unfortunate, and really shuts down a major opening for creativity these days. If you look at the history of music, nearly all popular music today is built on earlier works, without first getting permission. It would be a terrible situation if we end up shutting off that form of creativity by requiring permission for everyone first.
The issue isn’t to blame the tools providers for implementing such features, but to look more deeply at the state of copyright law today, where we’re increasingly suffocating the real purpose of fair use, which was to allow such creativity, without first requiring permission. These filters don’t understand fair use, so they assume anything that matches is infringement, and because of that, we all suffer.
However, there are a few quotes concerning copyright and sampling that are most interesting. For example, there’s a discussion about the infamous Grey Album — a mashup by DJ Danger Mouse mixing The Beatles’ White Album and Jay-Z’s Black Album. As you probably know, EMI went insane over this release, threatening to sue everyone — as it has done since then on other Beatles mashups to this day. However, I can’t recall ever hearing anything, one way or the other, about Jay-Z’s opinion on the album, and it’s basically the opposite of the way EMI/The Beatles reacted (from about 12:50 in the interview):
Terry Gross: “So I’ve got to ask you how you feel about the Grey Album, which is the mash-up that Danger Mouse did of your Black Album and the Beatles’ White Album, without any copyright permission. So, how do you feel about it musically and how do you feel about the fact that he did it?”
Jay-Z: “I think it was a really strong album. I champion any form of creativity and that was a genius idea to do it, and it sparked so many others like it. There are other ones that, you know, it’s really good, there are other ones that, because of the blueprint that was set by him, that I think are a little better. But, you know, him being the first and having the idea; I thought it was genius.“
Terry Gross: “Did you feel ripped off by the fact that he used your music on it without paying for it? Or did you think it doesn?t matter, it?s really good art.”
Jay-Z: “No, I was actually honored that, you know, someone took the time to mash those records up with Beatles records. I was honored to be on, you know, quote-unquote the same song with the Beatles.”
If you listen to the actual audio, you can hear his sincerity on that last part. Later on (around 23:45), he talks about the process of getting permission to sample Hard Knock Life, highlighting the ridiculousness of permission culture. While he was thrilled about having others sample his music and do stuff with it, when it came to getting the rights for Hard Knock Life, he had to convince the original songwriters to let him sample it, and to do so he told “a big lie” concerning how he had seen the play, Annie, on Broadway as a kid, and had written an essay for some school essay contest about the importance of seeing Annie on Broadway. While the original songwriter of Hard Knock Life notes that he was happy with the Jay-Z song, it still highlights one of the problems with permission culture. Basically, Jay-Z had to beg (and lie) to create art.
Nick Dynice points us to the news that a remix artist named Pogo is getting ready to release some new audio/video remixes, based on Disney films — but he’s expecting to get sued by Disney to do so. That’s because (apparently) he was working for Disney in creating some of these videos, but folks there are refusing to let the videos he created be released:
Folks, I long to release my Pirates Of The Caribbean mix on YouTube. I think it’s one of my best mixes yet, and it’s agonizing to imagine it rotting away in some filing cabinet instead of taking its rightful place in my body of work. All I’ve been told is that the producers at Jerry Bruckheimer Films want nothing to do with it. Whether that means they’re displeased or they’re just waiting for the right time is impossible for me to say. The sad reality is, Swashbuckle was contracted work. I?d literally have to start saving the money that Disney would sue me before making the decision to upload it. But who knows? It might just come to that. My music is my mark in this world. If I have to pay to watch it entertain millions of people, then so be it.
Of course, I find it quite intriguing that Disney appears to have hired a remix artist to create remix videos. I’d love to get more details on how that came about in the first place. What’s really odd is that the blog post indicates that he had to take down his “classic” Disney movie remixes while he was working at Disney, but now that his contract is up, he’s free to put them back up. You can see an absolutely brilliant song he made out of the classic Snow White film, using “vocal syllables, musical chords and sound effects” all from the 1937 Disney film:
If I worked at Disney, I’d hire this guy too… but I’d set him loose to release whatever he came up with. It’s hard to see how a video similar to the one above could do any harm whatsoever to Disney. If anything, it makes me want to go see the original film again.
Michael Scott points us to an interesting paper by a law professor, Tonya Evans, talking about how poorly copyright law is designed to handle a concept like hip hop. Of course, this is an issue that we (and plenty of others) have covered for years — noting how copyright law has drastically hindered certain aspects of hip hop music, once the lawyers started accusing samplers of infringement, and some courts suggested that using just a tiny snippet of a song, and even changing it so the original was unrecognizable, still constituted copyright infringement. From the abstract:
For decades hip hop producers have relied on the innovative use of existing recordings (most of which are protected by copyright), to create completely new works. Specifically, cuttin’ and scratchin’, digital sampling, looping and (most recently) mashing are all methods of creating music and are all integral parts of the hip hop music aesthetic. Collectively these creative processes are the hallmark of the type of innovation and creativity born out of the hip hop music tradition. And hip hop artists and producers from Chuck D, Queen Latifah, A Tribe Called Quest and M.C. Lyte to The RZA, Missy Elliott, Dangermouse and Jay Z have employed the sampler more as a musical instrument or palette than a tool of expediency or theft. But when done without the permission of the borrowed work?s copyright holder, sampling is at odds with copyright law. Unfortunately, copyright fails to acknowledge the historical role, informal norms and value of borrowing, cumulative creation and citation in music.
Additionally, different copyright infringement standards are applied to the two types of music copyright (the musical composition and sound recording). Further, and arguably more troubling, different infringement standards are being applied by the circuits to sound recording infringement cases resulting in a split in the circuits.
Evans concludes that “intellectual property should be most narrowly tailored when innovation in the field tends to be highly cumulative” such as the case in music. But what really caught my eye was the claim that “copyright law must be remixed.” While I think Evans, like many copyright reform advocates, makes the mistake of focusing on balance, rather than looking to optimize the best results for everyone, there’s just something amusing about using the term “remix,” which is usually used when discussing the content itself, to discuss how copyright law might be reformed.
