[Ableton Live soft sampler - user interface] In 2006, Time selected "you" as the "Person of the Year" and celebrated the new digital democracy of Web 2.0. The magazine credits the Web for enabling citizen participation on sites like YouTube, MySpace, and Wikipedia, which collectively have created an unprecedented phenomenon of community and collaboration. As technology becomes cheaper, faster, and easier to use, more individuals are actively participating in the production of culture. They are shooting and posting videos to YouTube, crafting collages with digital images, manufacturing mash-ups, or otherwise contributing to the expansion of the commons1. by sharing information and media via the Internet. The proliferation of computer based software products, the Web, peer-to-peer servers, and other sampling technology continues to raise significant issues with respect to copyright law. The laws were originally created to protect artists and their work but recent legislation governing copyright protection is inhibiting independent artists, limiting creativity, and shrinking the opportunities for sampling and remix art. Who has the right to borrow, copy, cut, reproduce and remix what, under which circumstances and according to whom? In other words, what are the repercussions of copyright law for artists who sample? This was the big question with which I began researching the subject of U.S. copyright law. As an academic with a specific interest in media and digital culture I was interested in learning more about the impact of current copyright laws on cultural production. With the intent of sharing my findings with as broad an audience as possible I decided to compile my research into a series of documentary shorts titled Copyright, Culture (Remixed). My co-producer Jennifer Machiorlatti and I began our quest by interviewing academics, attorneys, artists, and others involved with copyright and/or some artistic undertaking. We wanted to learn more about their thoughts on the impact that current copyright laws are having on artists' abilities to create, as well as the public's abilities to consume. This essay draws on research and interview material collected for the project which argues that although there should be some copyright legislation in place to prevent piracy and encourage artists to keep producing their work, it should not be so extreme as to impede their visions to create and ability to engage in the transformative reuse of culture. We are also living in a world in which most everything has become property marked to show ownership. So much in culture is privately controlled and owned (Bollier, 2005). Our media-saturated pop culture is overrun with commercial property that often times exist simply to draw our attention to other commercial products. In his book Freedom of Expression, communication scholar Kembrew McLeod (2005) argues that as a result of such practices we now live in a hyper-referential, branded culture. At times the references are used in a satirical context, such as when The Simpsons parodied FOX's right wing political stance for which creator Matt Groening was almost sued. Most of the time they are the products of media conglomeration and cross-marketing machines that push consumption and do little in the way of encouraging creativity or citizen participation. For example, millions of viewers tune in each week to watch American Idol judges drinking Coke products and America's Next Top Model contestants compete for a contract with Cover Girl cosmetics. The result is that while the tools to remix art and culture have become more accessible, the control over property is regulated by what Lawrence Lessig (2004) in his book Free Culture calls an "extremist vision" of copyright law. For instance, although there are those of us who feel that we've seen enough of Mickey Mouse to last us a lifetime (given Mickey's status as the most reproduced image in the world (McLeod, 2005)), others might want to use their newly acquired digital tools and skills to remix Mickey, be it for purposes of critique or homage. Regardless of intent, thanks in large part to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, it is not legally possible to appropriate Mickey despite his old age. Taking effect in 1998 the act retroactively added an additional 20 years of copyright protection to currently protected works, expanding the term to the author's life plus 70 years (Zeleny, 2004, p. 314). Without this new legislation Mickey would have been freed from his Disney shackles and become public domain material available for all of us to use freely in 2004. The introduction of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act also in 1998 demarcated the year as the beginning of a grave time for artists' and citizens' freedom of expression. In response to digital piracy the DMCA instituted high-tech-era adjustments to existing laws. First, it facilitated the introduction of Digital Rights Management technologies. DRM technologies have effectively implemented technological locks on creative content, regardless of whether or not the content itself is in the public domain and hence, freely available for anyone to use. In other words, even though content of digital media such as DVDs may be part of the commons because it is no longer under copyright protection, the material cannot legally be copied for any purpose. For a brief period in 2005 Sony BMG went so far as to sell CDs with built in DRM technology to prevent piracy but when their tactics were made public several class action lawsuits were filed. It became apparent to record companies that the costs of DRM technology did not outweigh the benefits. Second, the DMCA criminalized the production of technology such as software and code that would enable individuals to crack the content scrambling system encrypted on digital media like CDs and DVDs. In the U.S. such extreme measures have impinged on "fair use" rights, which allow for the free, limited use of copyrighted material for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship and research (Zeleny, 2004). |
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