In “Remix” Lessig calls for a new system for regulating copyright, as he fears the consequenses of criminalizing a whole generation of digital natives that consider filesharing a natural act.
He gives a account of roles of man in terms of participative culture, using read/only and read/write to distinct differnet historical periods. Today’s society is defined by its read/write culture, we act as readers, producers/creators/writers and distributors.
In terms of copyright and a remix culture he looks at different ways of being participants in a read/write culture that allows for remix and open sharing, while looking for a system of compensation that stimulates artists to create.
He differentiates between the work of the amateur and the professional, and argues that the same juridical copyright system can not govern both types of production. I have discussed this distinctions in a previous blog post made for Piksel after having attended a Lessig lecture at Re:Publica09 this April.
The distinction in interesting, but not very concrete. What is a professional work, what is an amateur? It it a qualitative distinction or has it do with reputation? And who are the judges?
Lessig argues for a ways to seperate the use of digitally shared work, by looking at non-commercial and commercially use. Legally a licensing system of differentiating non-commercial/commercial use is in already in place through the CC-licenses.
Michel Foucault: What is an Author? 1969
Abstract: An critical view on the notion of an author by looking at various aspects, such as the individualisation of the author, the difficult relationship between an author and his/her work in terms of interpretation and finally, the notion of the author funtion. He opposes the postition of the author with the position of the discourse a writer can bring about.
Roland Barthes: The Death of the Author 1967
Abstract: Barthes looks into the relationship between the author, the work and the reader. He argues that the notion of an author came into play at the end of the middle ages with the new found focus on the individual, and as a result contemporary culture understands a text through its relationship with the life, hostory, taste and desires of the writer of the text. This view is constricted as an author in many ways is a copyist, a mediater of language and secondly that it ignores the contribution of meaning provided by the reader.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT: PERFORMER, AUTHOR, READER
Barthes argues for a historical development of the author-reader relationship.
Pre-individualistic times (before the Reformation) did not connect a writer with a certain text (much as Tom Pettitt presents in the “Before the Gutenberg Parenthesis: Elizabethan-American Compatibilities” where he states that: “pre-parenthetical culture is [..] dominated by [...]: the re-creative, collective, con-textual, unstable, traditional performance”.) The writer is a mediator, a messenger presenting the collective knowledge in a narrative, and the performer (whether that is the writer himself or someone else, is judged by his her ability to present a good narrative.
Anna Nimus in Copyright, Copyleft and the Creative Anti- Commons states that “The Romantic revolution marked the birth of proprietary authorship” and that “different pre-Enlightenment traditions did not consider ideas to be original inventions that could be owned because knowledge was held in common”.
Barthes continues that the authorative position of the author in terms of understanding, grasping the meaning of a given text is an illusion. It is a tyranny of interpretation – as the text has been given a final meaning – way of understanding. Barthes says: “To give an Author to a text is to impose upon that text a stop clause, [] a final signification”. The illusion lies in not seeing that it is the readers and their endless interpretations of the text that constitues a works total meaning.
He argues that the author is really dead the moment a text comes into to being. He says: “The Author [] is always conceived as the past of his own book”, “the Author is supposed to feed the book – that is, he pre-exists it, thinks, suffers, lives for it.” At the point of conception it is handed over to the readers who automatically gain ownership of the text through grasping the words and the language behind. NB: How does this relate to modern hermeneutics and historism as a mean to interpret, understand a text?
THE AUTHOR FUNCTION AND THE DISCOURSE
Foucault sets up four characteristica of the author function:
1. That the function of the author is connected to the system of law and organisation in a society
2. That the way an author function affect the discourse varies over time
3. An author is not immediately attibuted a discourse when a work is produced, it happens in retrospect.
4. The author function does not refer to a single, real individual (as Barthes demonstrates in the introduction of his article through citing Balzak in his story Sarrasine stating that “all writing is itself this special voice, consisting of several indiscernible voices”. Who is speaking?
Foucault continues by asking: “What difference does it make who is speaking?”
Foucault looks into the function of the author, and how this function is connected to certain discourses, as opposed to others. He claims that the role author and the concept of originality of his/hers works came the introduction of legal systems introducing the notion of property. The author has a distinct impact on the meaning of a text, and authorative figure that even through methods of seperating the author from the work – he/she is still very present in the understanding of text.
Foucault continues to see how this function introduces some types of discourses and limits others.
As Barthes, Foucault introduces a distinction between an author and other types of writers. Barthes points to the modern writer as a sciptor (as I understand it he introduces the writer as a medium, a messenger who performs and handles collective knowledge through language. This is still a bit vague to me), whereas Foucault calls for another system of contraint, other than the author function, to regulate the interpretation and growth of a work (fictional work).
Another interesting point of Foucault is his distinction between fictional and scientific works.
He argues that scientific texts today are not based in authorship/author function, rather in a common ground/principle of truth that constitutes a paradigm that the writers play within. He further argues that writers within scientific disciplines are not founders of discourses as their work is referring back to physical world, that it is defined “in relation to what physics or cosmology is”, whereas the work of founders of discourses refers back to the work itself. He uses the example of Sigmund Freud and coining the idea of psychoanalysis.
NB: How does this relate to Thomas Kuhn and his theory presented in his Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)? Kuhn postulates that paradigms occurs as a result of discourses when a certain scientific paradigm have difficulties in explaning new observations and experiences. E.g. as in the case of Copernicus and his theory of Earth’s postition in relation to the Sun and the universe. Does this not constitute a new discourse, as it completely altered the way man views himself as a part of creation?)
CONNECTION TO REMIX AND BIOLOGICAL REMIX
What does it mean when the remix has a distinctive impact on the ecosystems we are all part of? Does it really matter who did it, other than in terms of regulation – e.g in knowing who to blame if things go wrong?
Henry Jenkins: Textual Poachers – Television Fans & Participator Culture (1992)
Ch. 7: Layers of meaning: fan Music Video and the Poetics of Poaching
Abstract: A introduction to fan video making, narrative storytelling, commercial videos, convention videos and living room videos, and how the fan artist further conntects an original work with a fan community through remixing.
Walter Benjamin: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935)
Abstract: Introduces the notion of the “aura” of an orginal art piece – an how this aura is lost or distracted when losing it’s position in space/time thorugh mechanical reproduction. He further looks in to the differents between private media and public media and how this engages man in different ways.
JENKINS, HETROGLOSSIA AND FAN ARTISTS
Henry Jenkins starts of the chapter by introdusing Mikahail Bakhtin’s term “hetroglossia” – that refers to the inherent meaning that any word carries due to use in history. The true creation lies not in finding a new word, but rather to have the knowledge of the meanings a word carries and the ability to use the carried meaning into a new and desired context. Jenkins states that a fan artist main contribution lies in “the imaginative juxtaposition” of already produced content.
FAN ARTISTS AND THE CONNECTION TO A FAN COMMUNITY
The fan artist builds on the vast knowledge pool a fan community has on a subject, and plays on speculations and fantasies that already is hinted at within the community. The fan video is successfull if the artist manages to add perspectives, deepening the understanding of the fan universe, through his or her suggestions. In one way we might say that the fan artist is a critic, whose contribution serves as a starting point for new discussions within the community.
The skill of the fan artist is much like the skill of Mikahail Bakhtin’s writer, he or she needs to be knowledgeable about the meaning of each contenct piece, to be able to tailor them into a new narrative. An equally the work demand the pre-set knowledge of the fan community for it to convey its meaning.
PRIVATE AND PUBLIC MEDIA TYPES
Walter Benjamin talks about media that produces reflection and that these media are necessarily private, not public. The reading of book and viewing of a painting in a gallery are private in the sense that only one or few people can enjoy it at a given time. It is not a collective experience. Where that is not the case with architecture or film.
Jenkins looks into two forms of fan videos, the “living-room videos” and the “convention videos”, and opposes them to commercial music videos (ala MTV).
The living-room video is detaljed, complex and with many layers in the narrative. It is meant for individual viewing or viewing in small groups.
The convention videos need to be less complex as the group doesn’t “concentrate as deeply” and “want to laugh together”, the ability to reflect and participate to attach meaning to the material seems to be weakened.
The commercial music video on the other hand, Jenkins argues, is mostly without narrative – the mash-up of images and text the constitutes the video, have lost their original meaning. Instead of a narrative, the composistion and style is produced to distract the rational mind, and evoke emotions.
Although the convention video is created with a narrative, yet more simple, it still bear a lot of resembles to the commercial music video, with its focus on entertainment value.
Benjamin argues that film makers are constructing new realities with the film media, due to the possibilities presented in the media of filming in several shoots, cutting the filmed material. This cutting up of the reality gives the spectator an immediate experience of the reality presented, in form a shock. This experience of reality does not come from a reflection leading to an understanding -it is there to produce certain emotions and feeling is the viewer. This brings Jenkins notion of commercial music videos in mind, that he states “decenters and disorientates”.
COMMUNITY, PARTICIPATION AND MEDIA MANIPULATION
Benjamin also talks about the community aspect of media, that is adressing a group in this way. There is a room for all the participants to speak of their reaction to the film, a conversation that is of interest to all members, as it is based in this shared experience.
Jenkins emphasized the deep realtion ship between the communicty of fans and the work presented by a fan artist. The fan-artist suggests and critiques in his/her videos, and invites an already knowledgable group to partake in the discussion. The fan artist strengthens the bond that exist between an orginal piece of work and its fans.
Even though he doesn’t state it specifically, I get the sense that Jenkins doesn’t think a commercial music video gathers the same engaged audience.
Benjamin talks about the democratising effect of mechanical reproduction where all citizens can be part of the art piece. As a extra in a film, through a letter to the editor in a newspaper. Movies and print allows for new modes of participation in art.
But he also express concern in how media can be used as a tool for engaging a community of active followers in a certain way. Writing this article in 1935, as a communist an jew, the seeds of the Nazi propaganda must be all frightening.
In remix culture today, there are positive connotations to the ways technology has democratized media. We can all be creators, curators and distributors in a connected, digital world. What Benjamin fears might not be the active participation of man in cultural production, rather the monopoly or centralized control of a given media – the mass-broadcast whoose message is decided by a few, and a powerful few – a media manipulation of reality spreading desired narratives/opinions to a crowd.
Writing this a wonder it there is a closer connection between tconvention videos with its simple message (still narrative) and emotional evocations and the propaganda movies. Hmm.
RELATIONSHIP TO BIOLOGICAL REMIX
As I have decided to look into the strange realm of biological remix. The remix of either natural matter to create new lifeforms, or the mixing of cultural and natural content to create new identities, I will try to see how the notion of remix as presented by Jenkins related to my topic.
A community of fans bought rights for a propriterary 3D animation software, turned it open source to be able to work freely with the development of the technology in film production. The Blender community is based in the Blender Foundation, and the films are equally an showcase for the current Blender technology (3D content creation suite).
Open source aspect: CC-license (BY-SA) of end-result and production files, the Blender technology, collaboration platform,
Economy: Consultation, pre-order, donation, collaboration
VEB FilmLebzig – Open Source Film Net Label
Production:
¤ 2004: 104 minutes Documentary/Road Movie „Route 66”.
Within a year the movie was downloaded over a million times and spread on 600.000 DVDs.
¤ 2009: Second feature film „The Last Drug”
Details: 20 Free Culture- & film enthusiasts and $450,000 budget.
¤ 2009: Open Source Documentary Road Movie „The Spirit of Motorcycling”.
Open source aspect: CC License (BY), providing the footage for remixes.
Economy: Donation, collaboration and DVD/CD sales.
Open source aspect: CC License (BY-SA), open post-production server.
Economy: Donation and collaboration.
Wreck-a-movie
The web service Wreck-a-Movie offers a community platform for collaborative film making.
A Swarm of Angels
The Swarm of Angles collaborative film project is/was used a case study for Creative Commons.
The basic ideas is to attract ask a donation fee of min $25 to be able to participate in the project as decision-makers and contributers, with the first milestone of gathering 1000 members.
The project seems to be at a stand still close to a year, the last twitter entry from Juli 31st 2009 states:
“Latest on Swarm timeline: 1-3months: remix project up. 3-6 months: capsule project. Early 2010: absolute official (re)launch.”
Having spent the weekend plotting on how to find a specific point of entry in the huge topic of Creativity and Copyright – I stumbled upon on a topic that caught my attention. When discussing remix, we naturally stumble upon the role of the creator(s). The original creator whose creations are remixed by another. And one of the many arguments connected to the controversy in terms of dealing with copyright lies in whether the creator of the remix contributes with something orginal, or is merely mixing existing content.
I stumbled upong the life and work of Genesis P.Orrige and his/hers ongoing project of becoming the pandrogyne Genesis Breyer P.Orrige. In an interview s/he talks about connection between body and identity.
Reading this I started to think of the lastest work of the bio artist Eduardo Kac cleverly named The natural history of the Enigma, a bio art project centered around the plantimal Edunia. The Edunia came into being after Eduardo Kac introduced a gene from his DNA into the red blood veins of a Petunia. The Edunia is fertile. Kac thus argues that this remix is natural – since nature allows it.
With these initial examples in mind I will explore the realm of biological remix compared to cultural remix, focusing the role of the creator. What is originality in a cultural remix context versus a natural context. Do any of the rules/laws that applies to the cultural remix world apply here?
Obviously this can adressed from many angles. Think about hybrids, cyborgs, bio engineering, animal breeding practises, transsexuals, androids even AI.
So onto the first step: What has been written about this so far? Any interesting discourses?
For my master course in Remix Culture I have used the topics of creativity and copyright as a starting point for defining my research topic. I will use this post to explore the direction of my interest.
This is not an acedemic post. These are my personal assumptions based on previous experience, work and various literature. I will use my assumptions and beliefs to form a starting point for an academic investigation.
So the first assumption for my exploration is:
Remix is the premise of all creativity
An idea is never yours alone, it spurs from the human collective, traditions, culture, personal encounters and experiences. Gilberto Gilm, former minister for Culture in Brazil aptly stated it: “Sharing is the nature of creation” (RIP:A Remix Manifesto).
We must allow for a sharing culture to advocate innovation. Beyond inspiring new musical compositions, sharing information to utilize the manpower of a global community to find solutions to global challenges – the cure for cancer, solving the energy crisis, space travel – is of utmost importance.
Having information and creative content locked up behind walls of copyright regulations and patents are not constructive in a interconnected world.
Second assumption:
Current copyright systems are not encouraging remix
Historic and current compensation systems are naturally set in place for a reason – and I would argue that reason first and foremost to be concerning the issue of attribution and economic compensation.
In terms of attribution, the system need to acknowlegde the creator behind a work, and furthermore the system is supposed to outline an economic model for compensating the creator for the time and resources invested in the production of a work.
On the economic side the traditional copyright system isn’t directly protecting the creator, rather the person, institution or orgransisation that represent the work and enforce the copyright, who then in turn compensate the creator they represent. I would call this body “the distributor”.
The distributor has traditionally also been in charge of the master copy and the copying machine, controlling the access to a product or work.
With the rise of Internet, the world biggest copy machine is unveiled, but it is not a copy machine that one distributor controls specifically.
Which takes me to the third assumption of my exploration:
Our current copyright system is not protecting the creator, but a business modell that is outdated
The cultural, social and technological development of any society offers an increase in demand for certain skill and type of occupations, and the decrease of others. Lots of current argumentation today in defense of of current copyright systems, seems to come from traditional distributors.
Internet with is inherent open-ended network structure and filesharing as its primus modus operandi has offered its participants to be more than just consumers. Everyone have the ability to share (distribute) close to any digital production with ease. Everyone is an distributor.
Fourth assumption:
The creator can no longer be protected by the distributor chain
And this is where it gets interesting.
What technological and legal compensation systems can ensure attribution and economic compensation for artists today?
In terms of legality Richard Stallmann introduced GPL (General Public Lisence), a free software license intending to ensure that software code can never turn proprietary and be fully shared fully among any project now and in the future. An alternative licensing system, the Creative Commons, initiated by Lawrence Lessig, is an appraoch to encompass the legal sharing of all creative work.
Both of these licenses advocate legal sharing of attributed works, yet none really address the economic consequenses of an creator freely sharing his/her work.
With the whole world as potential distributors of a given work, we need new models to ensure sustainable sharing, or put bluntly: How can we legally and economically open access to digital creative content?
A very incomplete and barely touched upon outline of some of the ideas that have been put forth as alternatives or part solutions:
DIFFERENTIATING NON-COMMERCIAL & COMMERCIAL USE
STATE REGULATED COMPENSATION SYSTEM
The state has a system for measuring the online traffic of individual users, and compensates the various creators accordingly. A fixed cultural fee on the use of internet is collected from each user.
OPEN BUSINESS MODELS
The digital copy is always free and openly available – each creator needs to find his/hers alternative source of income. The free, digital copy encourages distribution and in turn fame/familiarity. This direct connection to an audience is then utilized to push upgrades, related product/services, new collaboration opportunities that can be charged for.
WIKINOMICs AND THE ECONOMY OF PEER-PRODUCTION
The ideas on the economy of collaborative production (e.g. the idea of Wikinomics presented by Tapscott and Williams) seems to argue for the economics of online production, but not so much off-line production – work that demands time and resources from the individual creators outside a collaborative platform.
(The term “online” and “offline production” are presented by Matteo Pasquinelli in his critique of free culture: The Ideology of Free Culture and the Grammar of Sabotage (PDF)
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And then I got off track.
I feel like a robot assembling data to tell a story I am not sure I find so interesting.
EDIT:
It is actually not so much about feeling as a robot, more that the topic has such a wide range, that I am challenged in being specific.
Is it interesting to write a paper about potential compensation systems, on a global scale?
What happended to the notion of creativity?
How in depth should it be with the time I have available (medio November) and how original?
What about the more philosophical aspects of the public, the commons, the recursive commons, the creative anti-commons? Copyright versus copyleft in terms of stimulating an active, producing commons.
How can I make this topic be about more than just systems of copyright?
¤ Ben Klock - OK
¤ Luca Lozano - Berlinetta (J.Philips mix)
¤ Monkey B - Forward Funk
¤ Rodriguez jr - Pina Colada (Voodeux remix)
¤ Voodeux - Just A Spoonful
¤ Ben Klock - Cargo
¤ Voodeux - The Spell
¤ Josh Wink - Dolphin Smack (Martin Buttrich remix part 6)
¤ Josh Wink - Hypnoslave
¤ Misstress Barbara - Dance Me To The End Of Love
¤ Giorgos Gatzigristos - Basics
¤ Russ Gabriel - Prey Tell
¤ Mike Shannon - Mercury Mile
¤ Solieb - Isotropy
¤ Solieb - Circus Maximus (A-Mix)
¤ Solieb - Lovesong
MOSTLY MASTER MIX
¤ echonomist - hidden treasure (patrick zigon remix)
¤ adultnapper - juror no.9 (gaizer remix)
¤ mindz kontrol ultra (dj yellow & hi-tech2) - where are we coming from? (tedd rock bottom remix)
¤ karafuto - funky squad (karafuto mix - funky squad 2008 remake)
¤ audision - avenger (mark august remix)
¤ mark august - the wasps from tunisia and the silver piggy
¤ krikor - i am for sale
¤ giorgos gatzigristos - cartridged
¤ fred rush - x or track
¤ barrientos & corrado - less heat (guido schneider mix)
¤ peter van hoesen - casual care (samuli kemppi remix)
¤ cesare vs disorder - small creatures
