As someone who is always on the lookout for new music, I enjoyed the documentary. I am grateful that they introduced Girl Talk to me, and found it to be an enigmatic beginning to draw the viewer in.
As I pursue Transmedia Storytelling in a self-directed area of concentration in my undergraduate studies, I’ve become acutely aware of the copyrights, red tape and challenges that come into play with the exchange of ideas. In a digital era, we find ourselves interconnected but inundated, consumed by media. When ideas become intellectual property, it becomes difficult to express and share ideas. I find it especially ironic, when we live in a transformative moment in which everyone has the power to be a creator. To stomp out this creative flow by copyrights and litigative action impedes the very movement that began this. In relation to Transmedia Storytelling, I discovered concepts such as world building and expanding an interactive story to engage in its intended audience. To construct this fictional but very real world to fans is to borrow and build upon ideas already existing, and add unique creative twists and spins. When this interaction exists between the creator and the user, it blurs the lines between whether copyrights would be involved.
Therefore, I find the phrase culture jamming to be very fitting. As a vitriolic rebuttal against the war on creative rein, culture jamming attest to the mindset of people with shared interests and backgrounds – usually connected by closeness in age.
The intergenerational gap becomes much more clear when the musician was live-editing the remix via video chat to the older couple. The documentary is bias towards the “creator’s movement”, as the narrator wholeheartedly supports this sampling and repurposing of preexisting songs, melodies and notes. I also take his side, and completely disagree with the notion that if something samples (or borrows) bits and pieces from an outside source, then it isn’t “original”.
It brings up the question – what is original, and what isn’t? It could be easily argued that nothing is original, especially in the midst of this shift where consumers self generate their own content and can share it through interconnected channels (i.e., social media).
Many more interesting points were brought up. The most imminent and threatening of these, lifted from the Remixer’s Manifesto, is the third and final bullet: the future is becoming less free. This thought it insanely scary, as technology continues to develop so rapidly, I am curious to know how close to reality this idea foretells. With everything becoming a copyright and some form of creative license in one way or another, ideas are becoming shackled and held tightly by brands and corporations. Lawsuits seem to spring up left and right. Taylor Swift comes to mind, considering the multiple lawsuits that she has filed and also, lawsuits that were filed against her. Even the most common phrases like, “haters gonna hate” — a popularized meme and colloquial phrase, could be grounds for stealing intellectual property and for a potential, big money lawsuit.
In the midst of all of this, where do we draw the line?