Remixing Remix Culture

REMI  XING

re·mix
“The activity of taking samples from pre-existing materials to combine them into new forms”(Navas, 2007).

re·mix  cul·ture
“The global activity consisting of the creative and efficient exchange of information made possible by digital technologies that is supported by the practice of cut/copy and paste” (Navas, 2007). “A mashup …remixes and combines content from a number of different sources to produce”(O’Brien & Fitzgerald, 2006, 1) …“a rich, diverse outpouring of creativity based on creativity” (Lessig in Koman, 2005).

"Music Remix Culture". Background image sourced via google images under Creative Commons license. Image by Kate Blundell

A Remix So©iety
Everyone’s doing it, whether we are discussing a recent TV show with a friend, citing references in an essay or remixing, changing and mashing-up existing content. Remix culture is not a new idea in society although advances in digital technology and the internet are propelling it forward at increasing momentum and, although vast, all of these forms of communication and expression are essentially remix culture. In a bid to put our own creative stamp on the world we not only generate new content, but remix and reinvent content in new and individual ways. “We now inhabit a ‘remix culture’, a culture which is dominated by amateur creators – creators who are no longer willing to be merely passive receptors of content” (O’Brien & Fitzgerald, 2006, 1). The media world is shifting from a sit, watch but don’t comment realm into a vast and ‘scary’ interactive, multifaceted creative society where anything is fair game…or is it?

Remix culture has faced similar criticisms and adversity that all new media technologies and creative medias have come up against in the past. The corporations throw their arms up in protest at the thought of content control and revenue generation being plied out of their ‘greedy hands’. Remix culture turns the accepted notion of content use on its head and this is no more graphically illustrated than in the metamorphosis of the Green Day album American Idiot into the remixed American Edit.

Ameri©an Edit
Long standing production companies argue that music remix and mashup’s (created without permission) are against copyright laws. They maintain that such ‘plagiarythms’ do not have creative substance and are therefore not a legal form of new expression (Vaziri, 2005). These notions stand to reason if the remix or mashup slanders the original artist or robs them of rightful credit and revenue. However, it could be argued that some remixes and mashups actually generate new interest in the original material and, due to their nature of new expression, would not impact on sales of the original materials.

The mashup album of Green Day’s American Idiot, released by Party Ben and team9 under the alias Dean Gray, is amongst the countless cases of remix culture clashing swords with older media institutions and practices. In 2005 the album, aptly named American Edit, was released solely on the Internet but was shutdown after receiving an infamous ‘cease and desist’ order after only ten days from Warner Records, Green Day’s label.

Green Day-American Idiot & Dean Gray-American Edit album covers. Images sourced via google images under Creative Commons license.

In a display of social revolt against the large media corporations, the fans rallied together and organised ‘Dean Grey Tuesday’ and many of the mashup tracks were uploaded for download to the public. However, with the brute strength of these older media institutions and the notions of copy right which they shoot in every which direction it is no wonder that artists such as Dean Grey face some major legal hurdles if they do not have prior consent to use and reproduce existing content in the form of permission or under the Creative Commons license, a voluntary open content license.

Digital Te©hnology: fuel for the fire
Remix culture is fundamental to creative culture. ‘Dean Grey’, along with many modern creative types, essentially utilised modern, digital media and technology in an effort to embrace a new form of creative expression and produce something that stands on its own.

These advances in digital technology and Web 2.0 have provided absolutely essential platforms for the extension of creative culture. Such platforms not only extend society’s access to data and other creative works, but do so in a convenient and efficient way. Andy Warhol’s work was once condemned and lambasted as ‘not art’ and consequently secured a prime place in art history and on the art market. Similarly, with remix, new creative spaces have evolved and left open the possibilities for a regenerated form of expression.

Web 2.0. sourced from Wikipedia, under Creative Commons license.

Although many would argue that remix culture is in fact traditional media’s arch nemesis, especially on the front of traditional revenue generation, the art of media publishing lies in the ability of the industry to embrace media shifts and adapt and evolve with them. Remix culture is a “reformist attempt to break down the user/producer distinction that dominates the culture industry, helping artists promote creativity rather than consumption” (Chance, 2005). After all, this is how creative society moves forward from pure consumerism.

Yours, mine or everyone’s?
So who essentially owns this enticing, remixable material that is laid out in front of us on the metaphorical ‘goodies table’ that is the internet? Under the Australian Copyright Act, content is the property of the creator of the work and is subsequently transferable to parties such as record companies and media industries. However, would it be fair to say that due to the communal nature of creative ‘making’, we should all have the ‘right’ to dip our hands in this content filled cookie jar?

David Shield’s asks in his book ‘Reality Hunger’, (a novel comprised of plagiarised works through an unacknowledged reworking of William Gibson), “Who owns the music and the rest of our culture? We do — all of us — though not all of us know it yet. Reality cannot be copyrighted” (Kakutani, 2010)  As such, all thought and expression is generated through our interaction with other people, so why should we close the door to this new form of creative content generation? As thoughts and mediums are building blocks in creative expression, so too are the expressions of others. Perhaps this acceptance of remix art by not only the people but also media institutions is the next step forward in creative culture.

Content has circulated from the common domain to private possession and, with great leaps and bounds in technology, is slowly oozing back into the hands of the public, where many argue it should be. McKenzie Wark, in ‘A Hackers Manifesto’, argued that “Whatever code we hack, be it programming language, poetic language, math or music, curves or colourings, we create the possibility of new things entering the world” (2004). Ironically, Wark’s manifesto has also since been remixed in ‘Hacker’s Delight’ by Paul Mathias.

©opyRIGHT or WRONG?
The major obstacle for this new content brought about by remix culture is copyright itself, which controls media content and money flows. Copyright laws pertain to be about author ownership and recognition; however, in the case of American Edit, it was Warner Records, not the artists who initiated the infamous ‘cease and desist’, purely to protect the royalties that were not being paid to them for the use of the material. Green Day themselves actually showed great interest in the project and later collaborated with U2 after the mashup of “The Bad Homecoming (Waiting)”. It was this collaboration that has brought forth the argument that artistic ownership should be in accordance with the artists themselves, not media giants.

It seems that along with the mediation of and shifts in social, political and educational changes due to digital technologies there also needs to be a reshuffling of the notion of creative ‘space’. Copyright laws may need to be modified to facilitate and encompass the growth of new wave remix culture that is becoming so prevalent in modern publishing realms.

Remixing the Rules
Arguments about how and why copyright rules can or should be remixed in order to either curb or encourage remixing, depending on one’s point of view, abound. In Australia major changes to copyright laws made in 2006 did little to clear the muddy waters of the perceived conflict between ownership and innovation with regards to remixing, except perhaps the timely inclusion of a new parody/satire defense. “It is most likely that mashups and remixes will have to be interpreted on a case by case basis to determine whether any infringement of copyright has occurred”(O’Brien & Fitzgerald, 2006, 4). Various suggestions have been proffered in order to illuminate this contretemps.

One such attempt to reshuffle this space is through the instatement of Richard Stallman’s “Copyleft” which lists content under the General Public License maintaining any material reused under this license must follow by these guidelines in the reproduced works. That is, maintaining this specific content’s place in the public domain (Heffan, 1997, 1487).

Suzor suggests that copyright law could be reformed in such a way that material that is “highly derivative” and does not compete with the primary market of the owner may be used without permission (O’Brien & Fitzgerald, 2006, 4).

At the far end of the spectrum, Jaron Latimer encourages others to “treat the fruits of their”… minds…“as fragments to be given without pay to the hive mind” because, within the “metaness” of the modern technological world, the mash-up is “more important than the sources who were mashed”(in Kakutani, 2010).

Sourced from Flickr, under Creative Commons license.

Somewhere between the traditionalist belief in control versus a market free-for-all there must be a compromise. Lessig believes that the law will inevitably “catch up” with the technology as a matter of course. Artists will be able to use alternative mechanisms to “mitigate” the constraints of copyright law (Farber, 2006) so that the Dean Greys of this world do not have to pay for multiple licenses and we can all benefit from their creativity and ingenuity. We must not control access to knowledge and creativity “just because we can”(O’Brien & Fitzgerald, 2006, 5). As history has shown, creativity knows no bounds.

The next mix
Media production and consumption continues to transform from a static medium to one that facilitates interactive involvement and remix culture is no exception. Vast technological advances not only allow society to function, but shift creative license back to the people. This shift generates an open platform where users and producers become blurred, but not without a constant struggle and a re-balancing act between new media forms and older media institutions and practices.

Modern medias are in a constant flow of regeneration and reinvention. New media expression never ceases to scare the traditionalists, but as time progresses these ‘exotic’ and new media merge into the familiar and the media and social panic begins all over again with the next ‘new-wave’.

As O’Brien & Fitzgerald mentioned, “the challenge for creativity and the economy of digital content production is the extent to which mashup and remix artists should be allowed to borrow – in a seamless manner – from the past to create the future?” (O’Brien & Fitzgerald, 2006, 1). Despite remix culture initially appearing to be at odds with older media institutions and practices today, this form of media production may be accepted as the norm of new creative expression tomorrow. However, while the power of the media monopolies still reigns, let’s not hold our collective breath.

References

Chance, Tom (2005). Remix Culture: Issues surrounding re-use in Creative Commons licenses, Free Software Magazine, accessed online 4 June 2010, http://fsmsh.com/1173

Farber, Dan (2006). Mashups and the law, ZD Net, accessed 4 June 2010, http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/mashups-and-the-law/2614

Heffan, Ira. V. (1997). Copyleft: Licensing Collaborative Works in the Digital Age, Stanford Law Review, 49(6), pp.1487-1521.

Kakutani, Michiko (2010). Text Without Context, The New York Times, accessed online 4 June 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/books/21mash.html?emc=eta1

Koman, Richard (2005), Remix!, O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference,accessed online 4 June 2010, http://www.oreillynet.com/policy/2005/02/24/lessig.html

Navas, Eduardo (2007). Remix Defined, Remix Theory, accessed online 3 June 2010, http://remixtheory.net/?page_id=3

O’Brien, Damien and Fitzgerald, Brian (2006). Mashups, remixes and copyright law. Internet Law Bulletin, 9(2), pp. 17-19.

Vaziri, Aidin (2005). Green Day Gets Mashed in ‘American Edit’, SF Gate, accessed online 4 June 2010, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/culture/detail?blogid=3&entry_id=1884

Wark, McKenzie (2004). A Hacker Manefesto [version 4.0], Subsol, accessed online 2 June 2010, http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors0/warktext.html