Everything is a Remix Part 4 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
Techdirt: We've written multiple times about Kirby Ferguson's excellent Everything is a Remix project that has produced three videos highlighting the problems and history of intellectual property and how copying and derivative works are a core element of culture and invention. He's now released the fourth and final installment in the series, and it's a great summary look at the general problems with intellectual property law today.
3 comments:
I've been following this project since Part 1, so I'm glad to see its conclusion, and excited to watch Mr. Ferguson's next endeavor, This is Not a Conspiracy Theory.
I think the concepts of "copyrights" and "patents" have been floating around in society's collective conscious lately due to the drama surrounding SOPA and ACTA. It's funny that this video recently came out because the other day my professor brought up some of the same issues adressed here in my web design class. He brought up some of problems surrounding patents for software and websites, specifically the concept of patenting "one-step-checkout." His suggestion was that since web-based technology grows and develops so quickly, web-based patents should be easier to obtain (in terms of time) and should only last 2 years.
Although I agree with him, I think there is a much bigger problem at hand. "Intellectual property" has to be shared so it can be built upon, changed, and improved, especially in art-based projects. I believe our entire copyright and patent system needs to be re-conceptualized and re-designed from the ground up.
I think it's very interesting that Fergurson is not just dealing with the laws themselves as the articles points out, but really digs deeper into the concepts behind them, and is really looking at the whole idea of intellectual property as we treat it as a society. And the fact is that we are out growing these old ideas about owning ideas, and the thought that so-called "original" ideas are completely separate from anything that has ever been created before. For examples, as theater artists in general, we often take ideas we find through research, or browsing around the web, library, or wherever, and find ways to incorporate them in our work, either by tweaking them a bit, meshing them with different ideas, and figuring out ways to make them our own. We often use other's ideas as a jumping off point into our own, and what the video and this article points out is that these laws are stopping our ability to use other ideas to create our own. They operate off the idea that ideas are like an island in the sea, separate from everything else, when in fact they are often interconnected with their roots. Also, as the aritcle points, these law have become so outdated, that in slowing and sometimes stopping progress and innovation in some cases, they are running contrary to their original purpose, which was in fact to promote innovation. There is starting to be, especially with SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA, and the whole debacle that is the music industry currently, a greater conversation in this country about intellectual property and what to do about the laws that govern it. It's one that will need to continue to have if we, as a country, are going to be a leading innovator in the world, and continue to promote creativity and new ideas.
I found these videos on the green page last semester and I ended up watching all of them at least twice. This last video is a great linch pin for arguing against the ridiculous lawsuits that are going on over the different uses of media. Kerby Ferguson lays out his thorough process so simply that his argument becomes common sense. I am curious to see what he does next and if he will end up going about it in same way. A lot of what made this video series so good was that you could see and hear exactly what he was talking about and it really put you in a good frame of reference for understanding exactly what he was saying.
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