The Distributed Party Of 'We' Is Already In Control

Star Wars Is A Remix

from the everything-is-a-remix dept

Fri, Feb 4th 2011 5:28pm — Mike Masnick

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.

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Filed Under: culture, george lucas, remix, star wars

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Anonymous Coward, 4 Feb 2011 @ 5:43pm

What about when it isn't so much a "remix" as it just looks good that way? There are good set ups and bad set ups for framing items, but does that make it a "remix" more than a "this is just the good way to illustrate this item"?
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Feb 2011 @ 5:45pm

It's not really copying when you have to create everything from scratch. Also many scenes and shots in different movies are going to match up, because those are the shots that work. Just like in music, there are music progressions used almost universally because those are the ones that work. There are only so many ways to bake a cake.
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Hugh S. Myers (profile), 4 Feb 2011 @ 5:47pm

Pete Seeger and the folk process
I don't have an exact citation but a quick Google of his name and the phrase 'folk process' will give you a number of hits. As I understand it the 90+ year old singer Seeger has often pointed out that music is a living stream that you dip into from time to time--- at best you sample, hopefully improve and then pass it on. Mind you this doesn't prevent the copyright process or the typical mechanisms of the industry, but he is quite explicit in describing where things come from...
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Chronno S. Trigger, 4 Feb 2011 @ 5:48pm

Response to: Anonymous Coward on Feb 4th, 2011 @ 5:43pm
Doesn't that suggest that copyright is even less useful? If it's just so easy to do the same exact thing independently...
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zegota (profile), 4 Feb 2011 @ 6:33pm

This stuff is mostly common knowledge (Lucas readily admits nearly all of it), but I'd never thought of it in the context of copyright. Pretty cool.
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Prashanth (profile), 4 Feb 2011 @ 6:49pm

I don't think less of Star Wars
I don't think any less of Star Wars for doing this. I'm glad they did and that the result was such a fantastic movie (and, arguably, series). I do, however, think less of George Lucas, not because this in itself is wrong but because he has spoken out against such remixing of Star Wars in the past, so now he just sounds like a hypocrite.
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 4 Feb 2011 @ 7:00pm

Re: It's not really copying when you have to create everything from scratch.
Then why sue over these things?
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Paul Hobbs (profile), 4 Feb 2011 @ 8:27pm

If "creators" had to create without any reference (however subtle or hidden or even subconscious) to other creations, - essentially in a vacuum - we would still be living in the dark ages, perhaps even the stone age. Imagine if the "inventor" of the wheel had patented his invention (or at least refused to share it). Imagine a world without wheels - no cars or mass transportation systems; no flying between continents; no romantic bicycle rides with a lover; no pyramids. Oh wait - the pyramids would still be there cos aliens built them.

Perhaps a dose of humility is what is required here.

"What Descartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, and especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." (Isaac Newton)
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nasch (profile), 4 Feb 2011 @ 8:38pm

Re:
It's not really copying when you have to create everything from scratch.

The purpose of the series is to point out that nothing is actually created "from scratch". Not at the level of ideas. Yes, Lucas had his own cameras and shot the scenes anew, but what was in his head came from other things that people had done before.
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RD, 4 Feb 2011 @ 8:40pm

YOU SHUT YOU DIRTY MOUTH PIRATE!! Star Wars is ALL ORIGINAL!! ALL Scifi movies STARTED with STAR WARS! It would be a CRIME LIKE MURDER if ANY part of Star Wars was even a LITTLE like any other movie or story that came before! IT WOULD BE THEFT WHICH IS LIKE MURDER WHICH IS LIKE STEALING!!!

/sarc, for the loser copyrightmax shilltards who cant tell.
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JSquire, 4 Feb 2011 @ 11:42pm

ReMixing is not creating
The difference is re-mixing is using someone else's creations/source material instead of having the wherewithal to create something of there own. Sure, Lucas referenced/was inspired by others but he went out and filmed his own vision of those ideas/images. The lame/lazy re-mixers can't be bothered, they just directly take others expressions rearrange them and call them their own. Lame.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Feb 2011 @ 11:56pm

Re:
Exactly without copying those shots it would not be possible to do something that works that is the entire idea of copyright and that is to exclude others from doing something that works.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Feb 2011 @ 12:12am

Re:
Exactly without copying those shots it would not be possible to do something that works that is the entire idea that copyright vanquishes, excluding others from doing something that works.
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The eejit (profile), 5 Feb 2011 @ 12:29am

Re: ReMixing is not creating
Then what about all the remixes that the big labels do? Or the remixes that DJs do? I refer you to the OCReMix project, where original game works are transformed into new music.

So let's take, say, Final Fantasy VII - Voices fo the Lifestream. The fact that it uses original work and makes it, in some cases, better, can't just be because of the act of transformation? IT must be 'them durty pyrites.'

Lucas demands that people don't remix his works - this makes him look like a hypocrite, when someone points out his inspirations. Star Wars was a generic work taken to cunningly brilliant levels.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Feb 2011 @ 3:13am

Re: Re:
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/01/03/neil-gaiman-and-amanda-palmers-wedding-in-twitpics/

Wat their Tweeter accounts hacked or faked, are those pics fake?

Wow! somebody got really busy trying to do a stunt.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Feb 2011 @ 3:13am

Re: Re: Re:
Oops!

Wrong thread sorry.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Feb 2011 @ 4:28am

Re: ReMixing is not creating
So what you are saying is, if I sample a drum-break off a record I a composition then I HAVEN'T done something original.

But if I set up some microphones and record a drummer playing the exact same drum-break and use that, then I HAVE done something original?

Well I'm sure you're just trolling there cos no one could actually be that stupid.

Originality in a work comes from the imaginative re-combination of existing ideas. The method of synthesis of the work is relevant only to the execution of the work, not the ideas that it is based on.
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Alex Daniels (profile), 5 Feb 2011 @ 7:01am

Re: ReMixing is not creating
I've seen remixers that "take other's expressions, rearrange and call them their own" and make stuff from a totally different and new sound-world, and I've seen musicians that start from scratch and make totally generic stuff with nothing new. And it also happens the other way round. This is not about what technique is used but about how much creativity is put into rearranging and transforming the building blocks of the past.

Watch this and then come back to tell us it's not creative. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYa7furgQsA
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Michial Thompson, 5 Feb 2011 @ 7:43am

Re: Re: ReMixing is not creating
Anonymous Idiot;

If you sample a drum break off of a recording of someone elses work you are using someone ELSE'S work without their permission.

If you set up the drums and mics and record the same drum break, you are AT LEAST doing the work yourself and not mooching off someone elses efforts.

The problem most remix morons have is that they think that taking the work of someone else and just cut/pasting it into their work makes it theirs. They haven't put a damn bit of effort into any step of creating the sounds that were originally recorded, they just rip off the work that someone else did.

Lucus may have used all those scenes as references, but in no way did he "REMIX" them into Star Wars. All of the work to create the scenes in Star Wars was done my Lucas and his crew. The scenes look similar, but the work put into creating the scenes was done by Lucas.

This is the distinction between Remixing, and Recreating. Most of the examples used by little mikee are ambiguous, and are nothing more than angles and shots. The only real example little mikee grasps that holds water is the one with C3P0, that was Lucas might want to consider paying royalties on.
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Kaden (profile), 5 Feb 2011 @ 7:57am

Re: Re: Re: ReMixing is not creating
Congratulations... you just justified forgery. Feel free to 'recreate' as many pieces of currency as you want.

Oh.. wait...
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Feb 2011 @ 7:57am

What's the point of this article?

And if Star Wars is a remix, point me to something that was made previously that is just like it and I'll enjoy as much.

Little homages and nods to the creator's favorites do not qualify as a remix...
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abc gum, 5 Feb 2011 @ 8:01am

Re: Re: Re: ReMixing is not creating
He also reused a language, he did not create his own - these freetards are so brazen!
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abc gum, 5 Feb 2011 @ 8:03am

Re:
What does, where is the line and who made you the judge of that?
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Feb 2011 @ 8:50am

Re: Re: Re: ReMixing is not creating
It takes a special kind of idiot to come up with the idea that "effort" is the essence of originality. Copying is copying, whether it's done "by hand" or "through a computer". Whether I take a picture of the Mona Lisa with a camera or I take a canvas and paint my own, it's still a copy of the Mona Lisa.
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Mr. Smarta**, 5 Feb 2011 @ 8:54am

Every joke is like that also
Every joke you hear or that a comedian tells is little more than a remix of a joke heard years ago. I'm sure at one point long ago, two egyptians were standing around telling jokes: "Two pharoahs walk into a pyramid..." and it was adapted on through the years: "Two christians walk into a lion's pit..." or "Two Confederate soldiers walk into a Union fort..." And now today: "Two guys walk into a bar, they both say 'Ouch!'." The joke has just been adapted to modern day situations. In some cases the jokes are hilarious, in others the jokes are stupid as heck. Just depends on the person remixing and their level of humor. Same thing with films and music.
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Caledfwlch, 5 Feb 2011 @ 8:57am

Not only Carpenter but also Kurosawa
"George Lucas has acknowledged the key influence of Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress" on Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_Fortress
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Anonymous Howard, 5 Feb 2011 @ 9:27am

anyone else notice how quirky and no-worky "Vimeo" is?
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Feb 2011 @ 10:22am

Influence and remixing are not the same things. Remixing implies that you use the originals and overlay them. Influence means you saw something, it great influenced you, and you created your own original take on it.

Remix society is the society of using what was already done and piecing it together. Nothing new is created, except the collage.

Influence requires that you create from scratch. You hire the actors, you write the story, you shoot the material.

You can be influenced by something without replicating. Remixing is just replicating. Not the same thing.
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Hephaestus (profile), 5 Feb 2011 @ 10:50am

Re:
shilltard ... I like that :)
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The Groove Tiger (profile), 5 Feb 2011 @ 12:02pm

Re: Re:
The Shilltard Effect?
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farooge (profile), 5 Feb 2011 @ 12:52pm

>>"Everyone builds off the works of those who came before them. This is a good thing, rather than something to be punished."

amen
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Anonymous, 5 Feb 2011 @ 1:30pm

Re:
The point is to show that when people that are completely bereft of any artistic talent whatsover opine on the creative process, they look like fools.

Happens all the time here.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Feb 2011 @ 2:05pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: ReMixing is not creating
I agree. He's also set up the straw man that all works created on samples by their nature take no effort to execute.

What's telling is he hasn't tried to imply that works based on samples have any less emotional impact, which of course is the goal. Those of us that are creative know the ends justify the means.

If I sample a Led Zeppelin riff off a CD, or if record myself playing it on my guitar, neither of these acts have created anything original. The originality comes from how I manipulate and rework said riff and combine it whatever other ideas I've chosen to use.

But then I guess I stand corrected, some people really are that stupid.
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nasch (profile), 5 Feb 2011 @ 3:02pm

And if Star Wars is a remix, point me to something that was made previously that is just like it and I'll enjoy as much.

"Remix" does not mean the same thing as "copy".
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Feb 2011 @ 4:45pm

Re:
The Ancient Astronaut theory is pseudoscience.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Feb 2011 @ 4:46pm

Re:
The Ancient Astronaut theory is pseudoscience.
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herodotus (profile), 5 Feb 2011 @ 7:11pm

The word 'remix' is getting abused to the point of being almost meaningless.

Remixing something is a very specific process. It involves, not only ideas, but recordings of actual realizations of those ideas. It is quite distinct from emulation or artistic influence, whether conscious or unintentional, neither of which involve actual recordings as raw material.

This isn't said to denigrate remixes at the expense of traditional musical practices. It is simply a definition. I have nothing against remixing as a technique. I have heard DJ Shadow do things that are more musically interesting, and genuinely original, than the output of the vast majority of current singer-songwriters. But by referring to all of these different artistic relationships as 'remixing', important distinctions are lost.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Feb 2011 @ 10:28pm

Re:
Remixing implies that you use the originals and overlay them. Influence means you saw something, it great influenced you, and you created your own original take on it. Remix society is the society of using what was already done and piecing it together. Nothing new is created, except the collage.

Your argument is essentially "nothing can ever be more than the sum of its parts", which is provably false.

If you insist on your claim that "nothing new is created", then using the same logic, it's possible to prove that nothing new is *ever* created, because every song is simply made up of notes that have been played before.
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techflaws.org (profile), 5 Feb 2011 @ 11:23pm

Re: Every joke is like that also
Moses comes down from the mountain and says to his people.
I've got good news and bad news. First the good news:
I've got him down to ten, the bad news: adultery is still in.
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Pauly Gone (profile), 6 Feb 2011 @ 3:16am

Star Wars
More Star Wars design sources I assembled awhile back- http://www.box.net/shared/static/545zucdes9.jpg The most startling is an EXACT Chewbacca ripoff I came across.
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mordreas, 6 Feb 2011 @ 4:13am

why didn't I get credit for sending in this project, or someone else if the mentioned it earlier?
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Shon Gale (profile), 6 Feb 2011 @ 6:18am

Hey nothing's new! We have used and abused the master Shakespeare's works for centuries. We have used his story lines in millions of published works.
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Not an electronic Rodent, 7 Feb 2011 @ 1:22am

Re: Re:
Your argument is essentially "nothing can ever be more than the sum of its parts",
One of my favorite examples of "remix" is Terry Gilliam of Python fame. Famous for cutting bits of photocopies of old masters and magazines and moving them around.

Of course, clearly that's not even slightly original or creative since all he was doing was using the work of others directly without drawing his own...... It's just a remix of other people's hard work, right?
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GrrrlRomeo, 7 Feb 2011 @ 4:21am

Art is in presentation.
In jazz, borrowing another musician's phrases is considered a hat tip or a compliment to the original artist. Only now do people consider this theft because music because copies can be mass produced to be bought and sold making it more of a product than performance art.

And to the one who mentioned Shakespeare, his themes weren't original either. He borrowed from Greet tragedies and comedies, and of course, history.

Most art is in the presentation, not the subject. I wouldn't call two artist's paintings of the same subject a "remix."
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Feb 2011 @ 6:28am

Re:
How many accounts do you have?
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Feb 2011 @ 6:32am

Re:
No, Lucas did nothing! He just stole everyone elses IP and stuck it together in his mom's basement. He's getting a free ride on everyone else's hard work, ie. all the lengthy research and expensive trials to perfect the lighting, the scenes etc, etc. How can the original artists get paid when LUCASTard is stealing it all for FREE??!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Feb 2011 @ 6:33am

Re: Re:
...or how many computers do you have?
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Kopy Wright, 7 Feb 2011 @ 7:28am

...or how many computers do you have?
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Hugh Mann (profile), 7 Feb 2011 @ 7:43am

Star Wars is not really a remix
None of that stuff was actually made of copies of earlier material. Sure, certain scenes/shots look like recreations of earlier works, but that's a recreation, not a "copy" in the copyright (or remixing) sense.

In fact, it's an excellent example of the difference between ideas and expression. George Lucas, I think, has always been very up-front about having borrowed concepts from earlier works. He wanted the feel of old Flash Gordon serials, as well as material based on various myths, with some cowboy westerns and WWII moves thrown in. Well, he did his own versions of all of that. As far as I know, there's not a single frame of Star Wars that is copied from any other movie. Lucas did it all himself. So, he copied a bunch of ideas, but the expressions of those ideas were all arguably original.

This is quite different from the stereotypical remix, which (as the definition recited at the beginning of the video states) actually copies pre-existing works but adds (arguably) some level of creativity in re-arranging them and/or incorporating them with new/other material.

HM
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Hugh Mann (profile), 7 Feb 2011 @ 7:45am

Re: Re:
Which means it's not really "remixing". It is the epitome of the "idea vs. expression" dichotomy.

HM
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Hugh Mann (profile), 7 Feb 2011 @ 7:49am

Re: Re: Re: Re: ReMixing is not creating
You're free to paint your own droopy clocks or take your own black-and-white photos of Yosemite.

However, if you try to pass them off as something other than your own work, you are not dealing with copyright issues anymore.

HM
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Hugh Mann (profile), 7 Feb 2011 @ 7:52am

Re: Re: ReMixing is not creating
I look at remixing as perhaps "clever", but not really "creative". Sort of like the difference between really doing math and having a horse stamp its hoof to pretend to do math.

HM
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Hugh Mann (profile), 7 Feb 2011 @ 7:53am

Re: Re: ReMixing is not creating
I look at remixing as perhaps "clever", but not really "creative". Sort of like the difference between really doing math and having a horse stamp its hoof to pretend to do math.

HM
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ltlw0lf (profile), 7 Feb 2011 @ 8:34am

Re: Re:
No, Lucas did nothing! He just stole everyone elses IP and stuck it together in his mom's basement. He's getting a free ride on everyone else's hard work, ie.

I detect sarcasm in your tone, and I agree with that sarcasm, however, Lucas hardly did nothing. He took a bunch of movies, including Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, and melded them together into a fantasy story in space. I cannot stand copyright maximalists beliefs that any copying is wrong, but what Lucas did was copying from many works, then sorting them into a decent story in another place and time from the originals (though Flash Gordon was in the same genre, unlike the Samurai movies.) We all copy, and it is what makes our individual works better. My question to the copyright maximalists is, and has always been, where in the sand is copying wrong...can we have a definitive line in the sand where everything before that line is constructive borrowing and everything past the line is evil copying. Sure, taking one movie and copying a significant amount of dialog and action works as grounds for me, but when you take bits and pieces from a spectrum of movies, it should be counted differently.

For the record though, I don't see a problem with someone borrowing a significant portion of a work to make it better (I welcome anyone to take my work and make it better, but then again I am a firm believer in open source,) but I suspect most copyright maximalists believe that any copying which results in padding their paycheck with more money if they win is bad copying (because they are sadistic greedy bastards.)
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Jason, 7 Feb 2011 @ 8:41am

Re:
All you've done is distinguish digital from analog in the process of copying. Nothing really to further your argument.
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Chosen Reject, 7 Feb 2011 @ 9:48am

Re: I don't think less of Star Wars
I'd like to see a citation for this. Lucas has been really good with remixing Star Wars. He's been present for a lot of fan fic stuff. Heck, there's even The Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards where the grandest award is the George Lucas Selects award, winner picked by Lucas himself.
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Kirk (profile), 7 Feb 2011 @ 10:31am

Re:
"Remix society is the society of using what was already done and piecing it together. Nothing new is created, except the collage."

Way to bury the lead there, dude. �Nothing new is created, except for the thing created.� What an elegant Zen statement. If Michelangelo takes a block of marble and some tools and carves a statue of David, nothing new is created. Except the statue. If you take some pieces of broken glass and make a mosaic, you haven�t created anything (except the mosaic). If you�re intention is to say that the creation is of lesser value, I can�t argue with a subjective valuation. I would just point out that even you admit that something is created.

�You can be influenced by something without replicating. Remixing is just replicating. Not the same thing.�
Copying is just replicating. When you do something to change the form, meaning, and context of an existing work, "That's Aremix!"
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Kirk (profile), 7 Feb 2011 @ 11:01am

Re: Re: Re: ReMixing is not creating
�If you set up the drums and mics and record the same drum break, you are AT LEAST doing the work yourself and not mooching off someone elses efforts.�

There�s a name for using existing components and not expending resources to recreate what�s already there; it�s called efficiency and it�s worked really well for us humans.

�The problem most remix morons have is that they think that taking the work of someone else and just cut/pasting it into their work makes it theirs. They haven't put a damn bit of effort into any step of creating the sounds that were originally recorded, they just rip off the work that someone else did.�

You left out the part about combining those pieces in a creative way. That�s an important part.

Lucus may have used all those scenes as references, but in no way did he "REMIX" them into Star Wars. There, I agree with you. As Herodotus (the younger) said:
�Remixing something is a very specific process. It involves, not only ideas, but recordings of actual realizations of those ideas. It is quite distinct from emulation or artistic influence, whether conscious or unintentional, neither of which involve actual recordings as raw material.�

I see the utility of maintaining a more specific definition of remix.
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Any Mouse (profile), 7 Feb 2011 @ 2:01pm

Re: Star Wars is not really a remix
And yet if you look through TD, you will find a lot of stories revolving around artists who might have used a /similar/ bit of music in their own compositions being sued by other musicians who are screaming about copyright. This article is just being used to highlight how incredibly stupid and shortsighted that sort of thing really is.

Yeah, I'm sort of agreeing and disagreeing at the same time. I'm not convinced that 'remix' was used properly in this article.
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Nraddin, 7 Feb 2011 @ 6:51pm

nothing new in the world
There is nothing new in the universe, never has been never will be. The sooner people figure that out the better.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Feb 2011 @ 10:18pm

Re: Re: Re: ReMixing is not creating
So collage is pretend art?
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Not an electronic Rodent, 8 Feb 2011 @ 12:38am

Re: Re: Re: Re: ReMixing is not creating
Again, Terry Gilliam. What he did for Python was essentially collage. Not creative Hugh?
Besides, if I remember correctly a camel was one of the greatest mathematicians ever :-)
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Hugh Mann (profile), 11 Feb 2011 @ 11:11pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: ReMixing is not creating
Yes.

HM
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Hugh Mann (profile), 11 Feb 2011 @ 11:12pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: ReMixing is not creating
Yes, collage is basically "pretend art".

HM
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Hugh Mann (profile), 11 Feb 2011 @ 11:16pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ReMixing is not creating
To clarify, I don't look at "clever" vs. "creative" as necessarily binary. As a rule of thumb, I guess, I'd consider works that lift actual elements from other works as tending to be more "clever" and less "creative."

The more your work is made up of elements actually created by others, the less creative I consider your work.

Doesn't mean it's not funny or poignant or whatever. Just that much less originally creative.

HM
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