Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Post #10: The Remix

For my remix, I  chose Lil Wayne's "Green and Yellow", a song that was released right before the Super Bowl and remixes Wiz Khalifa's "Black and Yellow." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOTcj-baCa4&feature=related

In the reading, Lessig uses the example that, with a brief given in court, "Everything is drawn from cases that went before, presented as if the argument now presented is in fact nothing new" (52). The similarity with Lil Wayne's song is that a majority of the aspects in his song (rhyming patterns, punchlines, timing, etc.) draw from Wiz's original creation and change it only in some minor aspect. For example, in his chorus for Black and Yellow, Wiz raps "screamin' that's nothin', when I pulled off the lot, that's stuntin'." Alternatively, Wayne's chorus includes him rapping "Pittsburgh Steelers, that's nothin', that Super Bowl ring, that's stuntin'." This remix pays homage to the catchy rhymes and clever timing which made the original so popular by making slight changes throughout the song.

These changes, however, completely alter the message of the song from an ego-boosting anthem about cars, money and Pittsburgh to a song purely cheering on the Green Bay Packers. Lessig states that "The remix is meant to do something new" (52). The contrast in message from Wayne's song and the original is multiplied by the fact that the two cities represented by each artist would soon  face each other in the Super Bowl. It seemed like Wayne, a known Packers fan, wanted to even the playing field heading into this huge game by giving Green Bay an anthem similar to the one Steelers fans had been playing all season. Therefore, he altered the message with his remix and did something new.

I really liked Lessig's way of summing up the two sides when discussing how creativity will be governed: whether the "ask permission" norms be extended from film and music to text or the norms of "quote freely, with attribution" spread from text to music and film (55). It's interesting that he's separated the choices this way instead of just public vs. private because, in his representation, the conflict is not simply about monetary issues, but rather attributing ideas to or acknowledging the work of the original creator. Wayne doesn't flat out say "Thanks Wiz for the beat, I'll take it from here", but rather he pays homage to the style and creativity that makes the song so good, which in my opinion shows even more respect and appreciation for the original. He could've just taken the beat from Black and Yellow, made up a completely different chorus and changed the rhyme scheme and flow so that the remix had barely and resemblance to Wiz's song. This remix, however, seems to "cite" the widely popular original song by using such strong similarities that it's quality of being a remix is undeniable.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Post #9- Copyright Laws and RW vs. RO cultures

I think one of Lessig's main arguments made through the examples in the introduction is that the idea that "Permission is vital, legally" must be abandoned in order to encourage the creativity of artists. It's like giving a painter a canvas and brushes but no paint. The artists, such as Girl Talk, Candice Breitz, and even the mother with the YouTube video, must be able to freely engage with preexisting materials in order to build upon them and eventually create something entirely different. I like the idea that Breitz believed there were enough pictures and dedications to celebrities so she decided to show the other side, the people who make these icons so important. It's something we don't often consider but, truthfully, without us as consumers and fans of these people, they wouldn't be the celebrities we've come to know and appreciate.

Concepts such as this one are important to explore, especially in such a pop culture driven society, however the copyright laws have made it nearly impossible for artists to convey such bold statements with all the rules regarding usage. Lessig is saying that these laws and the over-protection of famous material is holding the creativity back in our society.

Lessig describes the difference between a Read/Write culture and a Read Only culture when he states that, in an RW culture, "ordinary citizens “read” their culture by listening to it or by reading representations of it" and consequently creating and re-creating from the materials and things they've observed. In contrast, an RO culture is "less practiced in performance, or amateur creativity, and more comfortable (think: couch) with simple consumption." This is important to Lessig's argument because, since we are believed to be living in an RO culture, there is a fear that ground-breaking ideas such as Breitz's and Girl Talk's will become more and more difficult to create for the artists, since everyone has become content with consuming mass media.

The Sousa example describes how an already famous artist could suffer by the potential for others to re-create and change their works for profit. Truly, it  is a gray area when it comes to the amount of change needed to be done to an original work before it becomes something else. Just in our discussion with Doc Adam, we had trouble discerning between remixes, mash-ups and a completely new song. However, I believe that Lessig's main argument is that the fact that these changes are being made, that people are exploring new ways to look at old things, is a good sign for society and monetary gains shouldn't play a role in limiting the creativity of a culture.