Tiffany Huang: NMA 2050

Marybeth Peters, the Register of Copyrights, stated “you can’t argue your creativity when it’s based on other’s people stuff.” However, this statement is contradictory. Copyright is protecting plenty of artists and companies from having their intellectual property from being stolen, yet many of these people got their intellectual property from building on past ideas. The whole copyright issue boils down to an argument of money versus creating new ideas. I agree with the four points of the remixer’s manifesto.

1. Culture always builds on the past.
2. The past always tries to control the future.
3. Our future is becoming less free.
4. To build free societies you must limit the control of the past.

If one were to use something copyrighted, it would be illegal. Yet, copyright was initially intended to protect people from stealing their ideas. Now it has become a double edge sword as only those who have the rights to the intellectual property can use it and those without, cannot. In a time where information is instantaneous and overflowing, this is a roadblock that needs to be removed. Copyright went from protecting to persecuting. It has been manipulated for profit.

However, the baffling part of copyrights is that it is not even the artists persecuting the remixers. In the end, it is a few large corporations going after remixers. It would seem that the copyright laws are not well suited to the changing digital environment. The charges against remixers are also ridiculous as they are persecuting people thousands of dollars for songs that they obviously do not have. So why would already large companies sue people thousands of dollars they clearly do not have? Money. Copyright has turned into a money making operation. These companies are irrationally trying to reclaim “their property” in a time where everything is easily accessible. They are the past trying to control the future and in turn restrict the future’s freedom.

I do not agree that companies should be suing remixers left and right for copyright infringement. At the end of the day, people usually do not dream up their own unique ideas. They draw from the past and other works done before them. To sue an entire generation creating their own culture because they are drawing from the past is ridiculous. We now live in a time where it is easier to do than ever before but it is also easier for these companies to pick people out for copyright infringement as well. Since it is rarely the artist themselves pursuing copyright infringers, the companies are the ones at fault. Radiohead was one of the examples presented to show how artists value creating more than money. They freely allowed people to remix their work to create new ideas. But to think that large entities value money so much that creating something new that is based off the past is so wrong, what does that say about us as a society? Is money really everything? “If this(remixing) is a crime, then we have a whole generation of criminals.” I think that a generation of criminals creating to better the world is far more preferable than a generation of law abiding citizens who are stagnant.

http://www.ubu.com/sound/scratch.html

Russolo writes that “nowadays musical art aims at the shrilliest, strangest and most dissonant amalgams of sound.” In this selection of sound art, there are a variety of different distinct sounds occurring simultaneously. Some fade after a certain period while new ones are introduced. In the Side A piece, it sounds like a busy place with some possibly brass musicians rehearsing. There is a strange sounding dog barking, a man singing, construction work, and other street noises. The combination of all these different sounds is strange but somewhat familiar. These sounds are all familiar to those who have walked down a busy city street. This is what Russolo would call noise-sound, where music changes with the introduction of machinery. In the 18^th century, this would not be considered music. Yet today, our definition of music has broadened with the innovations of different musicians over time. Music has expanded to include a variety of different noises that has been combined together as more and more musicians experiment with new sounds. Musicians are no longer limited to strictly musical instruments such as pianos, trumpets, violins and the like. Anything that makes a sound can be used as part of a musical composition.

Imagine being somewhere, such as an outside restaurant, a park or even a library. Close your eyes and listen. What do you hear? It’s bound to be a variety of sounds from people talking, background music and footsteps. Even in a library, you would at least hear the occasional turning of pages. Russolo writes that everything we hear can be considered musical art. It is strange to many that all these sounds would be considered art at all. But think of all the different songs you have listened to. Many songs have at least some sort of sound that did not exist centuries ago and has only been made possible due to technology. Auto tune and techno are just some examples of how music has changed.

A hacker as Wark describes, is someone who deals with creating something new. They are a “classless” group that wants to freely distribute information. I agree with Wark that these are the certain qualities that are inherent in a hacker. After all, how many people do you know who proudly goes around announcing that they are hackers? Not many. Hackers have a negative connotation to them; they are something destructive and needs to be punished for it. However, as Wark puts it, they are creators, “not always great things, or even good things, but new things.” Perhaps it is that they create new things that it is such a taboo class.

Take the hacker activist group Anonymous for example. They fall into the many qualities that Wark describes that make up a hacker. They are “classless” in the sense that the members are as their name may obviously point out, anonymous. No one knows who they are. How do you put anonymous people in a class structure? It would be very difficult. Anonymous are also in the business of distributing information and actively applying it to real circumstances. In the recent news of what happened in Ferguson, Missouri, Anonymous was involved with investigating and revealing the identity of the officer who shot and killed Mike Brown. With the information they gathered, they applied it in an attempt to force the police to apologize and stop the unnecessary violence against the people of Ferguson. Although it did not seem to have much of an effect, they were able to use their abilities as hackers. In essence, hackers are sort of jacks-of-all trades as they have to find, distribute, create and apply all sorts of information to create something new, whether it be for good or bad.

In an excerpt from “seeing the Brick”, the author writes, “the appeal of making images apparently move- the ‘fever to create’ which underpins the work of all animators.” I have experienced the “fever to create” many times. Sometimes when an assignment is given, my brain is automatically thinking of all the possible ways to complete it. But I do not want to do it just halfheartedly; I want to give it my all and challenge myself to do better than what I thought I could do. I want to step out of my comfort zones, even if it is just a little bit, to do the best I can do on the assignment. The surge of excitement and energy is the “fever to create.”

Having some experience in animation, I’ve had assignments where I have experienced this “fever” before. As opposed to non-moving arts, in animation, you can visibly see the change and progress you make as you create it. With a painting or a non-moving piece, it comes together but you do not have the luxury of replaying the progress back multiple times. With animation, it is also as if the animator is literally giving life to something. There is movement, expressions, sounds and reactions that allow the animation to have some life-like qualities. With a still piece, there is rarely any sort of reaction. A painting does not transition from happy to sad as fluidly as with an animation.

The challenge of creating multiple still images to create the illusion of movement is also something appealing. One image alone cannot portray an entire action. In comics and drawings, actions lines represent the movement and our brains must process it that a certain action is taking place. However, with multiple images playing at a certain rate, our brains do not see them as individual images but a seemingly fluid action occurring. The challenge of achieving this end result can be quite appealing in itself.