Intellectual Property: Who Draws the Red Line?

We have a massive system to regulate creativity. A massive system of lawyers regulating creativity as copyright law has expanded in unrecognizable forms, going from a regulation of publishing to a regulation of copying. –Lawrence Lessig

After watching these series of clips, I must say that if things go according to the corporation idea of copyright (or pro copyright people)..I would probably be in jail right now.

This film attacked a series of important aspects which are suddenly becoming extremely relevant today: is this culture free? And if it is, how do we know when we are infringing copyright or not? Our culture today is a digital one, and it is extremely difficult to set  a precise red line on what could be considered others property anymore. The internet has allowed the transferring of bits to occur at top notch speed, and make perfect copies of the original. It has also allowed sharing to be easier! I guess what I am getting at is: back in the 90’s, a person would actually go buy a CD album for a particular singer. And if someone wanted that music (say my neighbor)..then I would lend it to him! But now, with the internet, I can upload my music (and a perfect sharp exact copy) from my CD, and allow everyone to download it. Who makes the calls on whats considered copyright infringement? I did buy that CD right?

One particular artist who came to my head and has established fame just by remixing and mash ups is Gregg Gillis or Girl Talk. This guy is revolutionary: he makes completely new songs by mixing a good twenty or thirty different tracks together. His work was unnoticed at first..but then people actually started buying his music, and asking him to do live concerts! All of a sudden, copyright became an issue. The fact that Girl Talk used the tracks of others without their consent and proceeded to create a whole new song (and then sell that album) became an issue of importance.  Should Girl Talk attribute the artists they use to create their mash-ups? Should they have a right to sell their music on Amazon and other websites? Through sampling and experimentation, Girl Talk is able to achieve a compression of cultural time that makes the music a living distillation of pop. Gillis’s viewpoint on copyright, according to Forbes, is actually rather straightforward:

“I basically believe in that idea [of Fair Use], that if you create something out of pre-existing media, that’s transformative, that’s not negatively impacting the potential sales of the artist you’re sampling, if it’s not hurting them in some way, then you should be allowed to make your art and put it out there. I think, even in the years of doing this, the conversation has shifted a good bit.”

His music could be deemed creative, but for some it can also be considered stolen. His work is widely known and he proudly accepts that he believes that this digital culture is a free one, and as long as another artist does not lose anything in the process; that work can be made built on the original. His work reminds me of the idea which Lawrence Lessig calls “Walt Disney Creativity— a form of expression and genius that builds upon the culture around us and makes it something different” (Free Culture). 

Overall, after reading Lessig’s ideas and watching clips on mash-up and copyright, I guess I can reflect and conclude that there really is no right or wrong answer. That is just the way art is: shades of grey. And the digital culture (the mash-ups, remixes, appropriations) have reached a global scale (everyone can do it!) and if we work based on the work of others..then is it necessarily deemed stealing? Who draws the line on whats considered copyright infringement any longer? This film definitely pressed some interesting ideas in my head, and caused me to rethink almost every film, picture, and song that I have listened to.