I would like to start this post by saying, Thank you!

Thank you because I now want to learn more about Girl Talk, Lawrence Lessig, copyright laws, and funk music in Rio. I like when films or art in general introduces a specific idea but gets at the bigger picture, which may seem like the obvious thing art should do but not all art does that.

To quote the narrator of the Rip: A Remix Manifesto film, “this is not a world made up of passive consumers anymore, that era is over. This is a world made of collaborators.” And as collaborators the future dictates that we should unite, combine, extract (from the old) and revive (the new). Girl Talk represents a very interesting character, for on one hand he may appear to be this crazy kid who puts music together and jams. An artist (to me) or phony [to some], who makes Mashups of songs using a computer as an instrument. But on the other hand, he’s a scientist – a Biomedical Engineer, to be exact. I completely agree and love the part in the film in which he speaks about his work as a scientist in comparison to his work as an artist. Girl Talk explains how even very broad ideas are patented, and how if one has an idea which may be better but far too similar to something that was previously presented the idea won’t gather any attention. Now, this is quite unfortunate if you ask me, because in the world of Science – in the world we live in – a small modification/alteration could save or destroy. Girl Talk and I are on the same page about how the world of Science would be far more developed if things were done in a much more open way. We need to quit just talking and exiting, we need to talk and sit down. We need to talk and listen, we need to talk and exchange.

The real issue here is greed (the thirst for power). I found quite humorous and crazy how the Disney Corporation had an issue with the Very Important Babies Daycare Center in Florida, all because of some Disney characters on the walls. How ridiculous can a corporation get? Apparently, as far as saying that such actions violate copyright laws because it may give the impression that Disney is affiliated with the center in some manner. But all of this occurs after Walt, after the Master Sampler himself is gone, which brings me to:

“A Remixer’s Manifesto

• Culture always builds on the past
• The past always tries to control the future
• Our future is becoming less free
• To build free societies you must limit the control of the past”

The real problem here, once again, is greed (those established powers don’t want to make way for the new). And it is this ‘greed’ that limits us as a whole. Because in reality the copyright laws have lost track of what they were set up for and have gone down a road in which the main motive is to make a profit, not protect.