Share, Remix, Reuse - Legally

We swim in a sea of culture, of memories old and new,
and all our acts flow out in response to what we experience".

~Paul Saffo~

As new media producers, how can what we produce be considered original if our ideas and the content of our projects comes in part from what we experience of life, and culture, and other's work?

When a user produces and knowingly uses copyrighted material to profit, it is either illegal or plagiarism. What if the user produces using IDEAS of others? What if the IDEA has simply become a part of the culture and content? Do we hold users accountable for the memory of where the IDEA originated?

Saffo argues that we are in the earliest stages of creating in a world of infinite recall, where digital storage is so cheap that "all can be stored and nothing can be forgotten". Will our work as new media producers be scrutinized and critiqued the way IRS conducts tax audits? Will our information systems mature and allow for searches of combined content (photos and video and music and words and ideas)?

How then, to be creative and original? Saffo makes the point that it is the process of originality that will determine the creativity. How the IDEAS and even content are interconnected and presented in new ways might become the barometer for creativity and originality.

"I invent nothing, I rediscover"
~Auguste Rodin~

August Rodin sculpted The Thinker, which was presented to the public in 1904. Rodin began to draw at the age of 10, attended a school that specialized in art and mathematics and later visited Italy, where he was drawn to the work of Donatello and Michelangelo. Their work had a profound effect on his artistic direction. Rodin said, "It is [Michelangelo] who has freed me from academic sculpture". How much can/should we be influenced by the creativity of others and still produce "original" material?

If the Internet teaches us anything,
it is that great value comes from leaving core resources in a commons,
where they're free for people to build upon as they see fit.
~Lawrence Lessig~

"Share, Remix, Reuse - Legally"
Lawrence Lessig chairs the Creative Commons project and writes about how law should govern the exchange of information and ideas in a digital age. Creative Commons is a repository of sorts that where authors, scientists, artists, and educators can easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved."

He argues that there needs to be a balance between the two extremes of those who hold that material can never be reused and those who reject copyright law. He believes in the right to recreate to say things differently and that creativity and originality will suffer if recreation is not allowed.

New Media for New Generation
In reading about the issues of originality and copyrighted material, as a new media producer, I will strive to produce creative and original content. I will not knowingly use the protected work of others, except as an influence. I like the ideas of Lawrence Lessig and hope to be able to contribute my work as a "some rights reserved" project and then watch how someone else's ideas and mine recombine and become interconnected.

Links

Bush and Blair - Read My Lips (remix)

The Grey Video
Unauthorized clips from the Beatles White Album and J-Z's Black Album, combined to create the Grey Album

Larry Lessig: How creativity is being strangled by the law
20 minute talk at this year's TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) annual conference

The Mom Song (set to William Tells Overture)