Rip, Mix and Burn!

Rip, mix, and burn

What do these terms bring to mind for you? Are they everyday tasks in your culture? Any negative connotations? While it's interesting that widely available software has the tools needed to accomplish these tasks built right in, some would argue that the acts themselves of ripping, mixing and burning are indeed acts of "piracy".

At the heart of this debate is the term, "copyright" with legal, ethical and personal issues to consider. The work of others is automatically copyrighted and requires that permission be granted before that work is re-used in other projects or forms.

When Walt Disney ‘created’ Steamboat Willie in 1928, the work was based on a parody of Buster Keaton’s silent film, Steamboat Bill. Walt Disney added his own creative input, namely animation and sound and Mickey Mouse made his debut. The fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and others were used as the inspiration for many Disney “classics”, including, Snow White, Pinocchio, Bambi, Cinderella, and Peter Pan.

This borrowing was not unique to Disney or the industry. Early cartoons are filled with slight variations on earlier successful films. The difference, and what made them successful, was the brilliance of the content that was added. Animation, sound and the quality of the work were all factors that differentiated from the original, but the point to remember is that there were originals that existed and available.

In 1790, as part of our constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 determined the length of copyright protection at a term of twenty eight years and then the material became part of the ‘public domain’. While the copyright was valid, permission from the owner was needed for the work to be used by others. Once the material passed into “public domain”, citizens were free to use that content to be inspired by, build upon and bring their own creativity into the birth of something new and original. Over the years, the length of time that works are copyrighted has increased many times. Currently, copyright terms are in excess of eighty years. It is widely believed that this length of time will increase again and again.

What does this mean to you? To your children as students in a digital age? The dean of the USC School of Cinema and Television, Elizabeth Daley believes, “Education is about giving students a way of constructing meaning.” This generation is no longer influenced primarily by reading and writing, but also by images and sound and video. What if the way they were taught acknowledged the fact that they are plugged in more now than any other generation before? For students today to construct meaning, they must be free to express themselves in the digital world they live in. To suppress that curiosity and creativity by legally restricting access to all copyrighted content makes me wonder what we might miss.

Rip, mix, and burn – tasks very familiar to most students today but fast becoming dangerous unless some thought is put into our current laws. Consider the words of Lawrence Lessig:

Disney (or Disney, Inc.) ripped creativity from the culture around him, mixed that creativity with his own extraordinary talent, and then burned that mix into the soul of his culture”

I hope that generations to come will have the same (legal)opportunities.