The Amount Of Content Created In Spite Of Copyright Is Staggering

from the so-what's-the-purpose-of-copyright dept

We hear all the time how the world needs stronger copyright laws or people will have no motivation to create. This is obviously false, but to what level? Well, the amount of content creation going on these days is staggering. By some reports, every two days, we now create more content than was created from the beginning of time until 1993. I'm not sure I totally believe that stat, but even if it's an exaggeration by an order of magnitude, we're still talking about a ridiculous amount of content creation every single day. And the thing is, the vast, vast, vast majority of that content creation is done for incentives that have nothing to do with copyright. I think it can easily be argued that over 99% of the content created today is done for reasons that have nothing to do with copyright.

Of course, when we talk about things like torrent trackers, copyright maximalists like to point out that since (according to some reports) 99% of the content found via those trackers is infringing, then the trackers and search engines themselves should be deemed illegal. Of course, if we are to accept that logic, then shouldn't it apply equally to works automatically covered by copyright, despite no need for them to be covered by copyright? If 99% of works created are not due to copyright incentives, by the very argument of the copyright maximalists, copyright should be deemed worthless. Note, I am not saying that copyright is definitely worthless. I'm just pointing out that if we use the same basic logic as those who wish to condemn tools like The Pirate Bay using the 99% claim, then those same folks should obviously support the idea that those works created without copyright as an incentive do not deserve copyright. Why do I get the feeling they will claim otherwise?

Filed Under: copyright, creation, culture

When Musicians Get Excited About Remixes, Cool Things Happen: Jay-Z, Nick Drake And Jason Parker Do Jazz

from the remix-it dept

A few months back we wrote about jazz musician Jason Parker, who was doing a variety of interesting experiments on the business model side, and also making some top notch music (his No More, No Less album has become a regular in my "albums to work to" list...). He's been working on a new project of jazz interpretations of Nick Drake's first album, funded in part via Kickstarter. Of course, lots of albums are being funded via Kickstarter these days, so there was nothing all that special about that (other than that it's a cool idea).

However, he recently released a "remix" of a song from that upcoming album, mashed up with Jay-Z. You can listen to it here: Parker explained how this came about:

You may know that I play with an incredible rapper/hip-hop guru called Spekulation. Spek, as we call him, is super talented as a lyricist, performer, producer and beat maker. He also likes to cut shit up and stitch it back together in strange and wonderful ways.

Not thinking about any of this, I sent him some rough mixes of the forthcoming JPQ Nick Drake CD because I respect his ears and wanted to hear what he thought. What I got back was this remix. He cut up our take of "Day Is Done" with Jay-Z's "Can't Knock The Hustle", and lo and behold it was magic! Spek then asked for more mixes, so I sent him all 10 tracks. He cut 'em all up with various Jay-Z tunes and we now have a full remix album, completed before the original tunes. Go figure...

So enjoy this little sneak-peak into not one, but two forthcoming CD’s! You'll get to hear the rest sometime toward the end of March.

There are a few different things to note here. First, it's pretty cool to see just how excited Parker is about all of this. He sent off a work to a friend, who sent back a very cool mashup with a different artist from a different genre and asked for more. Parker happily sent the other tracks over, and now he's thrilled that he's got a full remix/mashup album ready before he's even released his new album. Thankfully, Jay-Z has also made it clear over the years that he isthrilled and "honored" to have his work remixed with others.

Of course, in a very traditional sense, there's an awful lot of "infringement" going on here, but most of the parties are happily ignoring that because they realize that what comes out of it is something really cool. It might not match your personal taste in music, but it's pretty cool to think that three very different artists all end up coming together to create something magical and enjoyable, and part of it happened just because a third party ("Spek") decided to make it happen.

Filed Under: culture, jason parker, jay-z, jazz, music, nick drake

Star Wars Is A Remix

from the everything-is-a-remix dept

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.

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

Spanish Film Academy President May Be Fired For Listening To Fans Who Don't Like New Copyright Law

from the how-dare-you-talk-to-the-people dept

We were just talking about how some Spanish politicians simply ignored the fact that the legislature rejected the plan for a new US-driven copyright law, leading to widespread outrage among Spanish citizens. Reader Dodo points us to an astounding bit of followup. Apparently, the president of the Spanish Film Academy, Alex de la Iglesia announced his plans to resign as president of the Academy in a couple weeks (after the Goya awards -- the equivalent of the Oscars) in protest of the new law. He initially supported it, but was convinced otherwise after talking to people on Twitter about it (Google translation of the original Spanish). While he claims his decision is because he believes that "pitting creators against the web is a mistake," and noting that politicans have refused to listen to the people, his critics are claiming that "his compulsive passion for Twitter has played a dirty trick" on him. Not only that, but the Advisory Board of the Film Academy is threatening to oust him before his resignation, because of his being "tricked" by the internet. Apparently just talking the consumers and film fans and getting their opinion is prohibido in the Spanish Film Academy.

Filed Under: alex de la iglesia, copyright, culture, film academy, spain

Odd Timing: As State Department Condemns Wikileaks, It's Promoting A Movie Celebrating Daniel Ellsberg & The Pentagon Papers

from the mass-confusion dept

Last month, we noted the hilarious timing in which the State Department announced it was hosting world press freedom day, at the same time it was screaming about the evils of the press in revealing the leaked State Department cables. It appears that the State Department still hasn't quite figured out how to be consistent on these issues. As it continues to slam Wikileaks... it's also promoting a new documentary celebrating Daniel Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon Papers:

Amid its struggle to contain damage from the WikiLeaks revelations, the State Department announced Saturday that "The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers" has been selected as one of 18 films that will tour the world this year as part of its "American Documentary Showcase" program.

Ellsberg, whom the film portrays as a whistleblower of conscience, has been a champion of Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, the alleged leaker of the documents who is currently jailed. He has also spoken in defence of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who may also face charges for publishing classified information.

I'd argue that the left-hand at the State Department isn't talking to the right-hand very much, but perhaps that's just because of the new policies put in place to keep all State Department communications more secret to avoid future leaks.

Filed Under: culture, daniel ellsberg, documentary, movies, state department, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

Mimi & Eunice: Ye Olde Technologie Killing Culture, Scribes

from the the-more-things-change,-the-more-they-stay-the-same dept

Last month a well meaning friend in San Francisco wrote to me:

Netflix hurts and an idiot student told me last spring,"Why pay too see Sita at the Red Vic when I can watch it on the Internet
for free."  I tried to be polite in my answer...  I fear theInternet, Netflix, and other forms of amusement are killing what is left of independent theatres which means it will make things harder for artists to break even on productions.  We will end up with a culture based on cell phone images "edited" on toy computers. 

To which I replied,

Actually, the "idiot student" is right - there is no reason to go to the cinema for the "content." The reason to go to the cinema is for the EXPERIENCE, which can't be replicated by isolated watching at home. Netflix and the Internet aren't "killing" cinemas; clinging to exclusivity as a business model is. Cinemas should be emphasizing the irreplaceable experience they offer.

And I drew the above cartoon. (Sita Sings the Blues ended up pulling in a great audience at the Red Vic, too.)

The second one is based on the Stop Piracy in NYC proaganda campaign. Maybe they'll sue me for stealing their idea!

Filed Under: culture

Permission Culture And The Automated Diminishment Of Fair Use

from the tragic-losses dept

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 be seen 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.

Filed Under: copyright, creativity, culture, djs, fair use, filters, mixtapes, remix
Companies: soundcloud, youtube

Comic Artist Dylan Horrocks Explains How Copyright Is Too Often Used To Kill Culture

from the death-by-a-thousand-cuts dept

Andrew Dubber points us to a wonderful essay from New Zealand cartoonist Dylan Horrocks (who, it should be noted, recently claimed that some stuff here on Techdirt was "very stupid") highlighting how New Zealand's government (and content creators) shouldn't be too quick to rush into expanding copyright law following the vision presented by the US entertainment industry. The whole thing is worth reading (seriously -- go read it), but I'll just highlight a few key points. First, he covers the well-chronicled history of Superman, and how DC Comics totally screwed over Superman's creators. But, even more importantly, they used that same copyright to block a competing (and, for a time, more successful) superhero, Captain Marvel:

Superman's popularity led to a boom in 'superhero' comics, with dozens of new characters introduced by every publisher in the business. One in particular, the red-costumed Captain Marvel (created by C C Beck and Bill Parker for Fawcett Comics), became so popular it eventually overtook even Superman in sales. Captain Marvel was witty and clever, with distinctive and playful art, and helped push the young American comics industry to new heights of quality and sophistication. But National, searching for a way to crush its biggest competitor, sued Fawcett for copyright infringement.

The case dragged on for years before Fawcett finally gave up, settling out of court and promising to shut down the Captain Marvel line. Many comics fans remember the end of Captain Marvel as the day their favourite hero was finally slain -- not by alien invaders or supernatural powers -- but by copyright lawyers. Looking back today, National's lawsuit looks weak indeed. But in the battle between Superman and Captain Marvel, the better comic lost.

He also talks about other cases, such as one involving Disney shutting down an underground comic -- while at the same time screwing over its own internal cartoonists. And another, about how the organization that holds the copyright for Tarzan in the US, which is in the public domain in New Zealand, threatened a NZ author for writing a book that included Tarzan. Even though the author had a strong case (hello, public domain!), just fighting it in court was too expensive. The pattern he lays out is clear: how copyright is so frequently abused to allow corporations to actually harm content creators, rather than help them.

The key point he makes at the end is worth repeating. The entire concept of copyright is based on this idea that you can actually own culture -- but as has been discussed plenty of times in the past, culture is about a shared experience. And these two points are very much in conflict. It is difficult to share an experience when someone else claims ownership of it:

When we're honest, most writers will admit that our work is not entirely ours. We don't invent our stories out of nothing. The truth is, we make them out of what's come before and what surrounds us every day: the world we live in, people we know, stories we've read and images we've seen. We swim in a deep ocean of culture, and in a very real sense, everything we make is made from that vast, shared sea. We are part of it, just as we are part of the world in which we live. If we treat that ecosystem as nothing more than raw materials to be torn up, exploited and sold in the marketplace, then sooner or later the whole system will fall apart. And if we draw water from the shared ocean -- as all writers do -- we must also learn to give something back. The relationship between a writer and their work is vitally important and must be respected. But we must also respect the countless other relationships that form around our stories and ideas: those who read them, share them and respond by making something new.

If only those who made policy actually recognized this concept.

Filed Under: copyright, culture, dylan horrocks

Copyright Expansion Through Misinformation Has Gone On A Long Time... And It Involved Pimps & Ferrets

from the pimps-and-ferrets-and-copyright,-oh-my dept

Nearly three years ago, we mentioned a dissertation by Eric Anderson, called "Pimps and Ferrets: Copyright and Culture in the United States," which looked at copyright in the US from 1831 to 1891 -- a little-studied period of time when it comes to copyright issues. There's plenty of coverage of everything from about 1900 onwards, starting with the debate around the 1909 Act. There's also a fair bit of research about the founding fathers initial intent with copyright. But not much attention has been paid to that in-between time.

Anyway, Alan Wexellat points us to the news that Anderson has now redone the paper as a book, and has released Pimps and Ferrets: Copyright and Culture in the United States under a Creative Commons license. He's using a non-commercial license, which we just discussed has some problems, but it really is a tremendously worthwhile read. It basically shows that, as we see today, many people don't really understand the purpose and intent behind copyright -- and that includes some of the folks in charge of making the law. That allowed some special interests to co-opt the process and expand copyright to their own benefit. Sound familiar? Well, history seems to repeat itself...

Filed Under: copyright, culture, eric anderson, expansion, ferrets, misinformation, pimps

Remix Artist Pogo Expecting To Be Sued By Disney For Releasing Latest Remix (Created For Disney)

from the copyright-as-censorship dept

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.

Filed Under: culture, pogo, remix, snow white
Companies: disney