Blog #5

The passage is interesting and difficult, only because when Geick brings up other sources as references he doesn’t always give them due credit. In the passage it was more so confusing because he didn’t make the people he was talking about very clear. This is challenging because he’s stating some really good facts but because we don’t know exactly who he is talking about all the time it becomes hard to give the proper credit to the author. Which brings us to the copyright laws we are discussing in class and how people want credit for their work but now can receive only partial credit for the hard work they have done.

As a different trade that needed or wanted credit for my work like a designer, an artist, a videographer, a musician, etc. I would try to solve this problem by some what creating another problem. I would solve the problem by making my works free online for people to use and give them all permissions for using my intellectual property. This would create another problem however that even though im giving all my work away someone could try to make the work their own by not giving credit and saying that it was their piece originally. My way would be a very trusting way and a way to give to the public so that creative minds could share the wealth and become stronger.

Blog #3

In general I think what we have seen in culture today that major cooperation’s and even smaller cooperation’s control what we see, which limits the intellectual property operating today. This being said our generation is negatively affected by these companies and harms the creation process that we already are limited on.

            In the reading Lesig generalizes that technology and intellectual property is being controlled too much. He states that Television stations have a general policy. This policy being that they control what goes on the Screen and the things that go on the screen are either shows or advertising. The companies can control what a viewer sees. This becomes a problem because they really control what the nation thinks. Similar to the scenario of; if you follow one station you will only see things that relate to your view point or opinion, this perfectly relates to politics and how some channels are republican and some are democrat.

The other point of harm would be that the laws on intellectual copyright strangling those creative individuals that could do great things but because they are limited by law, wont dare touch things that are from major cooperation’s or anything like that. What happens instead is that because the tight hold of intellectual property we are destroying the chance our future generations creators have.

In conclusion I’m wrapping up with my personal favorite motto, which I got from an old teacher. For context I play a lot of music and jazz. But if you know anything about jazz its all about improvisation and to be honest the greats didn't just make shit up. They copied little bits and pieces from the other musicians that were doing great stuff and made even better things together, similar to the re-mixers of today taking these songs and creating new things with them together and adding in their own “voice”. My teacher would always say that copying is the highest form of flattery and I believe it’s true. If was a famous musician, I would be thrilled to know people were copying my beats and using them to create their own songs.

Blog #2

I think Lessig has some really good points in the passage we read this last weekend. Those points being that the booksellers or publishers as we know of them today, were creating monopolies because of all the so called “Creative Material” that they owned; which in their case was the material from authors that worked hard to create those stories. I found this very interesting because how is what they did there; profiting from material they had no right to other than buying the original from the author and providing a small cut to the original author, different from how re-mixers do things today.

            I guess what I’m saying is yes remixing takes skill, it takes musical genius to mix those songs into something that becomes a new thing all together but in the end the argument is still did they have the right to use that material. Did they create anything themselves other than a sometimes shot in the dark of two songs being mixed together? Then what does the original artist have to see for their hard work. As the video on Friday, Copyright Criminals (2009), brought up with the drummer that most of the remixing population uses “Where is his credit or an acknowledgement of ‘Thank you for your beats’”?

            But bringing back to the text I see how the error then with the booksellers applies to now, as the publishers or music record labels say “The song is my property”. How is the song their property and in this fact I agree with Lessig that these industries don’t care about the author of the piece of music or the book, they care about losing money and staying in control of the material. It’s an overall scheme that the industry runs and it’s disturbing that they get away with what they do on a daily basis and make millions doing so.

 So really shouldn't the right of the song be placed in the Artists hands, or to the band that created the album, what do they see from the album in the long run other than a short “Hey thanks for making us a crap ton of money, here is your % cut”. Where does the line get drawn on copyright is my question, where should the line get drawn for those that had no part in creating the music or book in the profit from the selling of that creative material?