Everything Is A Remix: The Invention Edition

from the innovation-is-a-process dept

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.

Filed Under: computers, culture, innovation, invention, remix
Companies: apple, xerox

'Go The F**k To Sleep' Accused Of Copying Imagery

from the go-the-f**k-to-court dept

Well, well. We’ve written about how the massive success of the book Go the Fk to Sleep could likely be attributed to mass file sharing of the book itself, long before it was actually published (which, according to some, makes it a felony). While the publisher and the author originally tried to fight the sharing, they eventually calmed down when they realized that it was (massively) helping with sales. However, we noted the oddity of the author still then insisting that “piracy” was bad.

So it struck as quite interesting, in a comment on that post by Mark, that an artist is now suggesting that the illustrator of Go the Fk to Sleep appears to have copied at least one of his illustrations for one of the book’s classic images:

At the very least, I think a strong argument could be made that the illustrator used the original image as a template for his drawing. Now, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that (at all). In fact, it’s pretty smart. The image perfectly conveys what they wanted, so build on it, as they did. Of course, I was wondering what the original artist is planning to do about it — and hoping that he wouldn’t take the silly and wasteful path of deciding to “go the f**k to court,” but it looks like he’s considering it. Many people in the comments argue that it’s copyright infringement (there’s also a lot of misinformation in the comments), and eventually the original artist notes that he’s looking into what to do, and it sounds like he’s going to ask for money:

From my perusal of Mr. Cortes’ other works, it does appear that he makes extensive use of photographic references in his work. Whether he paints over them or just uses them as visual references I cannot say.

I don’t doubt that a lot of artists download references from the Internet and then adapt them to suit their needs. 9 times out of 10 no one is going to be the wiser, especially if they think they are looking at a stock nature photo someone took. Why drag your easel to Norway when you can hit up GIS?

What happens when the reference isn’t a photo however, but is an original artwork? The difference isn’t always clear and I do usually strive for photorealism in my nature work.

Either way, I will definitely be looking into this matter in the weeks ahead. It’s not personal of course (he seems like a cool guy), merely business.

That’s really too bad. Why do people get so freaked out when others are inspired by their own artwork? Of course, I’d also imagine that if people looked, they might be able to find similar photographic “templates” for other images in the book. But do those harm the original artwork? Of course not.

Filed Under: adam mansbach, copying, go the fuck to sleep, piracy

Disney: When We Copy, It's Inspiration; When You Copy, It's Infringement

from the hypocrisy-you-has-it dept

Ah, Disney.  You have to love a group of people with the ability to compartmentalize their views on matters like intellectual property to the level of these folks.  We’re talking about a company that plants its mouse-shaped flag firmly in the land of family values…and then attempts to oddly trademarks a term associated with military operations and death.  This same company is part of the chorus of folks out there decrying the public domain as a wasteland of unused creation… despite the fact that many of their best-selling products are built off of public domain works. I mean, this is the bastion of creation that hired a guy to do some remixes for them…and then refused to release those works.

And so it will come as a great shock to perhaps a couple of loin-cloth clad pygmies somewhere in the Amazon Rainforest when reader JMT alerts us that Disney, all-powerful harborer of their intellectual property, managed to be so inspired by a New Zealand-created supercar (called the Hulme CanAm Spyder) that they pretty much copied the design exactly for their upcoming Cars 2 movie.  The link to the New Zealand Herald discusses the situation with the car manufacturer’s director, Jock Freemantle:

"Everybody is telling us, ‘it’s your car’. I have had emails from around the world saying it looks like our car. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

Oh, if only Disney had the same perspective as this Kiwi with the possibly single most-fun-to-say name of all time.  Why is it that Disney, grim reaper of the copyright/trademark realm, has no problem with this?  It’s not like this is even the first time the Cars movie series has dealt with this kind of thing, having been through the court system over publicity rights concerning a car in the first Cars movie.  Take a look at the image comparison below and decide for yourself how closely Disney’s car resembles the CanAm Spyder (hint: if your determination is anything other than "Disney’s looks exactly the same, except Disney’s looks like they fed a bunch of Skittles to pigeons and then made them fly over the car to, er, color it,” then you’re insane).  The irony of this rip off design bearing the name "Rip" in the movie isn’t lost on anyone, either.

To make this as clear as day, the issue is not that Disney used a real life car as inspiration for one of their cartoon movie characters.  Rather, the problem is that if the roles in this story were reversed, Disney likely would have pooped its pants as a result from filing a lawsuit with the kind of speed that’d put the Spyder supercar to shame.  As one recent commentor put it in an unrelated story, Disney: Sue Thyself.

Filed Under: cars, copying
Companies: disney

Copyright Holders Claim That They Should Get To Decide Any Copyright Exceptions

from the are-they-serious? dept

It’s really getting ridiculous that copyright holders continue to insist that copyright is designed solely to benefit them. That’s been the standard line for ages, but it’s simply not true. Copyright law is supposed to be about benefiting the public. Yes, a part of that is that it’s supposed to benefit copyright holders also, but the defining factor is benefiting content creators such that the public is most likely to benefit. That’s why it’s simply not accurate to claim that copyright holders are stakeholders in the debate. Unfortunately, however, many people seem to think that they’re the only stakeholders, and the public isn’t even involved in the discussion. In fact, a recent discussion put together by WIPO of copyright holders had them claiming that not only were they the sole stakeholders, but that they, alone, should be the ones to determine copyright exceptions:

Copyright is necessary to allow authors to live from their trade and to guarantee their independence, and exceptions should be decided by authors and publishers, according to panellists on a copyright dialogue held at the World Intellectual Property Organization this week.

That’s simply crazy. That’s like saying we should let alcoholics determine driving-while-drinking laws. It puts those who would abuse the laws the most in charge of laws that are designed to protect others and to limit the damage they can do. It doesn’t make any sense. If anything, it seems to show the massive arrogance of some copyright holders:

The very idea that “exceptions should be decided by authors and publishers” betrays the deep-seated arrogance and contempt that both of these now have for their readers. And that’s all part and parcel of the publishing industry’s problems: it sees readers as the enemy, something that must be fought and vanquished in order for it to be forced to buy books on the terms of authors and publishers – forced, if necessary, by ever-more Draconian laws that criminalise willy-nilly.

Certainly not all copyright holders feel this way, but can you imagine what copyright would look like if the “exceptions” like fair use and safe harbors were designed solely by the copyright holders? I don’t think many people would be happy under such a regime… including the copyright holders themselves, once they realized what parts of culture they had locked up.

Filed Under: copyright, exceptions, fair use

John Lennon On Copying Others' Music: It's Not A Rip Off, It's A Love In

from the copying-can-be-love dept

Aaron DeOliveira points us to this wonderful bit of historical trivia, involving John Lennon’s 1971 response to an article in the NY Times that accused the Beatles of “ripping off” certain black musicians who the band covered. However, John Lennon saw it quite differently:

In case you can’t read Lennon’s handwriting, here’s the text, with the key line highlighted:

In Flight… yes
Altitude… puzzled
Location… yes

14th Sep. 71.

Dear Craig McGregor

‘Money’, ‘Twist ‘n’ Shout’, ‘You really got a hold on me’ etc, were all numbers we (the Beatles) used to sing in the dancehalls around Britain, mainly Liverpool. It was only natural that we tried to do it as near to the record as we could – i always wished we could have done them even closer to the original. We didn’t sing our own songs in the early days – they weren’t good enough – the one thing we always did was to make it known that these were black originals, we loved the music and wanted to spread it in any way we could. in the ’50s there were few people listening to blues – R + B – rock and roll, in America as well as Britain. People like – Eric Burdons Animals – Micks Stones – and us drank ate and slept the music, and also recorded it, many kids were turned on to black music by us.

It wasn’t a rip off.
it was a love in,

John Lennon

P.S. what about the ‘B’ side of Money?
P.P.S. even the black kids didn’t dig blues etc it wasn’t ‘sharp’ or something.

When we talk about things like mashups, remixes, covers, tributes, homage and other such works that so directly build off of the past, we’re quite frequently told that this is not art and that people should “make their own.” It’s a common refrain we hear here all too often. And yet, they never seem to recognize that replaying what you’ve heard before is an important part of culture. It’s a way of sharing, spreading and building culture by connecting it with a larger group of people. It wasn’t a rip off, it was a love in.

Filed Under: copying, john lennon

Kutiman Continues To Make Amazing New Music Via Musical Collage

from the who-owns-the-copyright? dept

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?

Filed Under: copyright, creativity, culture, kutiman, music, piracy, remix

How Did The iTunes Terms Of Service Become A Cultural Phenomenon All Its Own?

from the have-you-read-it? dept

People have always tended to hate “terms of service” (TOS) and “end user license agreements” (EULAs) for their software. No one reads the things. A few years back, we wrote about a software company that attempted to prove that no one read the terms of service, by embedding a promise to pay $1,000 to the first person who read the terms and claimed the money. It took four months and over 3,000 downloads before anyone claimed the money.

For some reason, however, the terms and conditions associated with Apple’s iTunes service have taken things to an entirely new level, to the point where it appears the iTunes terms have become a cultural icon entirely separate from iTunes. CNN recently asked some lawyers to go through the 56-page document to pick out the bits and pieces you should actually be aware of, but probably aren’t. But that’s nothing.

Plenty of folks saw the recent episode of South Park, in which the entire basis was built off of parodying the fact that no one reads the iTunes terms:

But, that’s not all. CNET recently had famed actor Richard Dreyfuss do a series of dramatic readings of portions of the iTunes terms, which you can hear in the video below:

I have to admit that I’m sort of fascinated with the level to which the iTunes terms have become such a cultural phenomenon, and am curious to see how far it will go. Will we see plays or movies based on it? How about a musical version?

Filed Under: culture, itunes, richard dreyfuss, south park

George Clinton Takes On Sample Troll Bridgeport Music Again: The DNA Of Hip Hop Has Been Hijacked

from the copyright-trolls dept

For many years, we’ve covered the odd situation between Bridgeport Music and George Clinton. The history there is highly disputed, but somewhere along the line, Bridgeport Music (apparently a one-man shop by a guy named Armen Boladian) “acquired” the rights to a bunch of George Clinton songs. Clinton claims that Boladian “stole” them and forged his signature on various documents. There are other versions of the story that involve questionable actions by agents, lawyers and record labels. Either way, about a decade ago, Boladian noticed that tons of hip hop songs sampled Clinton songs, and he dug up every single example he could find and sued them all — filing hundreds of lawsuits. Some resulted in legal victories, including an absolutely dreadfully ridiculous ruling in the 6th Circuit, Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films, which involved an almost totally unrecognizable 2-second sample of a Funkadelic tune that had the pitch changed. The district court reasonably found no copyright violation, but the appeals court, in a ruling that shocked many copyright scholars, stated that any copy was a violation: “Get a license or do not sample. We do not see this as stifling creativity in any significant way.”

Either way, George Clinton and Bridgeport have battled it out before, with Clinton agreeing to testify on behalf of certain artists sued by Bridgeport in the past. Clinton claims that Bridgeport dropped the cases every time he did that. Last week, Bridgeport sued Lil Wayne over a George Clinton sample, and Clinton is apparently not at all happy about it, putting out the following video where he calls the whole thing “bullshit” (in two languages! so slightly NSFW):

The video also highlights some of Clinton’s past dealings with Bridgeport and suggests that Clinton is getting involved in the fight. In the video, he states:

The DNA of hip hop has been hijacked, leaving many artists across generations in needless hardship.

Unfortunately, in all the years following Bridgeport and George Clinton, I have to admit that Clinton is anything but clear and detailed in explaining what happened or even what’s going on today. The same is true of the current video which doesn’t go into much detail. And while it points people to Clinton’s blog Funkprobosci to “help stop” Bridgeport, there really isn’t that much additional infromation. There is an FAQ, which has some info, but is again confusing and not particularly detailed. It would be great if there were a more complete and detailed explanation of (1) how Bridgeport got Clinton’s music (2) the existing legal challenges between Clinton and Bridgeport, and (3) what Clinton is trying to do now.

Filed Under: copyright, george clinton, hiphop, lil wayne, music, sampling
Companies: bridgeport, cash music

Another Appropriation Artist Loses Copyright Lawsuit; Are We Nearing The End Of Appropriation Art?

from the too-bad dept

With Shepard Fairey settling his lawsuit with the AP over an appropriated photo of President Obama, and Richard Prince losing his lawsuit for appropriating a photograph and then adding some paint to it, it seems like appropriation artists are running into more and more legal troubles. And now there’s another such legal ruling. Thierry Guetta, who was made famous by being the centerpiece of Banksy’s Exit from the Gift Shop documentary, has failed to persuade a judge that his artwork does not infringe on the photograph by Glen E. Friedman of the band Run DMC. You can see Friedman’s work and then two of Guetta’s works works below:

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that the second is clearly a direct copy of the first. However, some of the ruling is a bit troubling. Guetta tried at first to claim that the original photo did not deserve copyright, as there were similar photos of the band in the same stance, and Friedman, thus, had not added enough creative value to get any copyright. That line of reasoning seemed like a non-starter from the beginning, and the judge wastes little time dumping it, pointing out (as photographers always do) that the copyright on photographs is for things like the framing, light, shadows, clarity, depth of field, etc., which were artistic decisions by Friedman, in this case. Given the vast amount of case law on such things, this part is no surprise.

Where I’m a little more troubled by the ruling is on the fair use side of things. The judge went through the four factors, and didn’t see any support for fair use. I can see how this reasoning came about, but I think the judge isn’t being totally fair here. While you can’t really see it in the image above, Guetta’s work isn’t only just an ink copy, but in that second image he glued 1,000 pieces of vinyl records onto wood to help make the image. To me, that seems transformative. It’s making a statement, building off of an iconic image. In fact, one of the issues in the Prince case was that Prince wasn’t commenting on the original work. Yet, in this case, it seems clear that Guetta is commenting on the original work, and has created something new and different that does not take anything away from the original. Updated: I updated the images and the description a bit. Guetta apparently did numerous works based on the Friedman image. One was with vinyl, but not all… But, still, it seems clear he’s trying to make a statement about Friedman’s work.

Why is that so bad?

Some, of course, will bemoan the so-called “lack of originality,” but that’s a silly red herring. Art is not always about originality, and while the image may not be original, how it was done was enticing and interesting, which should be the point of art. In the end, as with the Prince case, I’m left troubled by the idea that a judge gets to decide what is, and what is not, art. For anyone who is creative, that should be horrifying.

Finally, I have trouble with this part of the judge’s ruling:

“To permit one artist the right to use without consequence the original creative and copyrighted work of another artist simply because that artist wished to create an alternative work would eviscerate any protection by the Copyright Act,” concludes Judge Pregerson. “Without such protection, artists would lack the ability to control the reproduction and public display of their work and, by extension, to justly benefit from their original creative work.”

That’s simply not true. Creating a new work that builds on and transforms the old does not eviscerate the Copyright Act at all. It’s actually very much in line with the purpose of copyright, which is to encourage the creation of additional works that benefit the public. And the last line is the most troubling: nothing in Guetta’s work prevented or even limited Friedman’s ability to “justly benefit” from his original work. If anything, it called more attention to it.

Still, with this growing trend, you have to wonder if the popularity of “appropriation art” is about to take a nosedive, as there’s just too much liability involved. So, there we go: judges killing another art form. That should trouble anyone who cares about culture.

Filed Under: appropriation art, copyright

Can 'Reality' Be Copyrighted?

from the and-even-if-it-can,-should-it? dept

If there’s one area of entertainment where originality is seemingly actively discouraged, it would be television. As soon as one particular formula proves itself to be a hit, TV producers begin circling the bandwagons, cranking out imitation after imitation. Rarely has this constant exercise in the "sincerest form of flattery" resulted in a legal battle, but that may all change with an upcoming ruling in a lawsuit filed by Japan’s Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), alleging that "ABC and Wipeout producer Endemol set out to replicate the TBS shows (namely Takeshi’s Castle, Most Extreme Elimination Challenge (MXC), Sasuke and Ninja Warrior), lifted popular components and even sought to manipulate Google into sending traffic for search terms ‘Takeshi’s Castle’ and ‘Ninja Warrior’ to a Wipeout-sponsored link."

ABC’s lawyers have argued that TV history is littered with a long line of obstacle-course competitions, dating back to the BBC’s It’s A Knockout, which ran during the ’60s, stating that TBS "remarkably claims copyright protection in obstacles and obstacle concepts ubiquitous in the public domain, such as ‘rope swings,’ ‘mechanical bulls’ and ‘pole vaults.’" If there’s nothing "unique" (and that’s become a very slippery word), then TBS has no legal claim to these elements.

However, ABC executive Howard Davine may have laid some inadvertent groundwork for TBS’ lawyers. A leaked memo from 2008 shows that he actively encouraged producers to skirt licensing foreign programs if possible when creating "new" shows for ABC:

"Not helping matters was a leaked 2008 memo from ABC executive vp Howard Davine, urging execs and showrunners to "carefully scrutinize" whether licensing foreign formats was "necessary or appropriate" before going forward with similar shows, especially when they might only be interested in the "general, underlying premise."

This, in turn, fired up another rights protection group, the Format Recognition and Protection Association, who responded by encouraging producers to help themselves to the "underlying premises" behind ABC/Disney IP, namely Hannah Montana and Mickey Mouse.

The ruling may change the game considerably for producers of reality programs who have shown a preference for "me too" programming with little legal backlash. (Our new favorite metaphoric term for "uncluttered by legislation/legal battles" makes a reappearance): 

Owing to what might be a knee-jerk reaction against protecting the creativity in a genre dubbed "reality," as well as a lack of clarity in copyright law, many producers believe there is a Wild West mentality in the unscripted world that has given rise to a culture of rampant, unlicensed borrowing. 

But does everything need to be licensed? Or are we fine with certain aspects of television being accepted tropes, rather than actionable IP? After all, it’s not as if any one producer can claim ownership of Detectives Solving Crimes or Three Cameras and a Laugh Track or even Ghost Hunter Hunts Ghosts. If they’re really going to sort this out into compartmentable pieces of litigation, every detective show ever is going to be paying royalties to the estate of Edgar Allan Poe. Even more to the point, defenders of copyright continually tell us that “ideas” aren’t covered by copyright — and yet, clearly, that seems to be what everyone’s up in arms about here.

Of course, this doesn’t stop The Hollywood Reporter from stating, yes, do exactly that when it comes to making sure that these kinds of “ideas” are covered by the law. 

In a genre where the traditional plot and character aspects of scripted works have been replaced by unique formats, the law might need to evolve to protect the creativity that informs this powerful segment of the TV world.

Maybe. But my gut feeling is the only thing "evolving" will be various IP law firms, rather than television itself.

(Hat tip to Mr. LemurBoy for sending this in.)

Filed Under: copyright, reality, reality tv