Week 1 Free Choice: Original Art

photograph by Melissa Lodhi

All of this discussion about copyright has gotten me thinking.  How much of the art that we see is truly original?  Should we be crediting all of our sources of inspiration?  When we choreograph a dance, we are using a vocabulary of movement created by someone else.  At times we are not even aware that we are duplicating something that we have seen or performed because the idea resides so deeply in our subconscious.  Music and visual art often are in the same position.  It is a narrow road between using something as a source of inspiration and stealing content.  I think current copyright regulations go too far and are to the point of stifling creativity.  The level of technology available to the masses affords everyone the opportunity to be a creator.  This should be the time of the greatest artistic innovation in history.  Hopefully, legal hurdles will not crush the artistic spirit.

Week 1 Peer Response 2

Mike Colleti

Wk 1 Reading: Copyright Issues, parts 1-3

Image courtesy of Creative Commons

First of all, the TED Talk video: ReMix Culture by Larry Lessig, was a great way to end this week’s video barrage. It put the whole copyright lesson into a capsule that made the most sense to me. And, I will definitely use the video as one of the closing elements of the Mass Media class I currently teach. It just ties all that we are reading and studying about together.

I agree that there needs to be a meeting of the minds on both sides of this issue, as some compromise needs to be agreed upon. If not, creativity will be stifled, or worse than that, become illegal. I can’t help but think of Fahrenheit 451, the great Ray Bradbury novel, and the use of firemen and book burning to control our existence, or even George Orwell’s classic 1984, with Big Brother watching our every move and Thought Police punishing thought crime.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for protecting what is mine, and everyone deserves that right as well.  However, if we were not allowed to take what already exists and make it better, where would we be now?  Our technology advances can be traced back many generations of creations, all taking it one step further in order to make something new.  Sending electricity through wires led to sending controlled impulses (telegraph) through wires, which led to adding sound (telephone), and then taking the wires away (radio), first without sound and then with voice, and then adding pictures (television) and so on.  Yes, I know there were copyright and patent battles and agreements throughout the process, but the creativity was not stifled.

We have provided our current generation with the greatest technology at an affordable price.  We need to let them take this material and stretch the limits of what that technology can do.  Whether it is through an organization like Creative Commons, taking the legal high road, or through “subversive” unauthorized experimentation, isn’t the idea that our children are exercising their minds and learning new things what is really important?  As Larry Lessig said in his closing of the aforementioned TED Talk video, [our kids] “live life knowing they live it against the law…in a democracy, we ought to be able do better at least for them…”

My Response

I agree that we need to protect what is ours but you are right that with most societal advances, someone took an existing idea and made it better.  But on the flip side, some make minute changes and then call someone else's work their own.  I am reminded of the whole Vanilla Ice scandal when he used the "Under Pressure" music for his "Ice Ice Baby" song.  He only changed one note and called the work his own and was all over the media defending that fact.  In this case, it was just ripping off someone else's work.

Week 1 Peer Response 1

Angela Alipour

When push comes to shove the copy write laws are all about the money. Who can get the most money and how. What’s wrong with someone taking your work and creating something else out of it as long as they give you the credit for being the inspiration of their creation? Especially when they can make it better. If we can do this with text why not film and music? Don’t those people get paid enough? Actually I think that many of them get overpaid.

One of the people that spoke in the video said that an artist needs copy write laws as an incentive to create. Yeah, right! When someone is creating they are not thinking about copy write laws. They are creating.

With the Fair Use law it’s good to know that there is a law that can cover your behind if you need it too. Of course it has to meet the criteria of critical comment, teaching, parody, and news reporting. Even under these circumstances one needs to be careful.

I was happy to know that Creative Commons is available for creators. The saying two brains are better than one is what came to mind when I saw this video. Sharing a personal idea or creation with another person can sometimes cause the other person to elaborate on that idea and the final result can be spectacular.

As I’ve been watching more and more videos about this I find that the music industry seems to have a real issue about copy writing. Wish I would have known about Creative Commons during the FSO music class.

My Reply

It can get to be a tough situation for artists.  As a working artist/choreographer, I have conflicting views.  On one hand, I could create a choreographic work, then someone else could modify a few steps and call it their own.  Why would anyone pay for original choreography if someone else could restage a work for half the price with limited changes and call it their own.  On the other hand, as an artist who likes to use the musical works of others, I get caught in a copyright snag because I cannot use someone else's music for my work without paying and getting permission which is hard on all dance companies because we are making so little money to begin with.

Week 1 Reading: Copyright infringement

I find the issues surrounding copyright law fascinating.  I am particularly interested because much of my career revolves around these laws.  As a professional choreographer, my own intellectual property is protected but I run into massive risks when using music to accompany my work.  Trying to publish or share my work is impossible without original music, which is unaffordable in most cases.  The video “Good Copy, Bad Copy” was eye-opening.  I am extremely baffled by how so many artists are able to produce work that is technically infringing on copyright.  It sounds like all remixes and remakes of songs are stealing intellectual property.  Copyright law is a jumble of pitfalls and loopholes.  In order to pay artists for their work, all 3000 songs on my iPod have been purchased on hardcopy or through iTunes, but I have on many occasions used the work of artists as accompaniment for my work which is technically a no-no.  

Image courtesy of Morguefile