DYSLEXIC REMIX IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Supplementary Theory For The New Media Documentary Video
Punch Lines for Progress
By
Marie Wustner
B.A. Maj. Studio Art, Min. Art Education
Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York, 2002
Abstract
Human beings’ unique ability to learn through imitation and improve on that which they learn is the basis of innovation and arguably one of our most important characteristics. Everything we have today is based on the findings of those who came before us. We build upon this knowledge allowing our complex societies to flourish. Language, agriculture, math, science, and art are always informed by their predecessors. This evolution relies on our ability to successfully communicate ideas. It is this gathering and sharing of knowledge that has carried us into the Information Era. However now that we have arrived here it seems we are in a battle over the ownership of ideas.
‘Remix’ or ‘Mash Up’ is a reflexive art form that allows the artist to create their own ‘meaning’ out of media-based cultural artifacts that surround them. This video collage technique helps people to surpass passive consumption by becoming active producers of media. Through the act of reappropriating, recontextualizing, and remixing, media awareness becomes less of a bombardment and more of a learning technique. Remix digital call and response culture allows its makers to expand on the perceptual world. What positive contribution does this media language offer our society? How can we use it to improve our educational systems, and how is it changing the way we communicate?
Contents
Abstract
Acknowledgements
Dedications
Introduction
Culture Clash
Punchlines For Progress
The Power of Play
Living Language
Free Culture
Chicken Little
The Politics of Piracy
Conclusion
Bibliography
Dorothea Lange walked with a limp due to contracting polio at the age of seven. She said of her disability – ‘I think it was perhaps the most important thing that happened to me. It formed me, guided me, instructed me, helped me, and humiliated me, all those things at once. I've never gotten over it, and I am aware of the force and power of it.[1]
~ Dorothea Lange, 1895-1965
Introduction
“Creativity is as important in education as Literacy!"[2]” The current educational system is in need of serious reform as it is inherently exclusive instead of inclusive. Our current public school systems were designed during the industrial revolution and still resemble the factory. Consequently, individuals who do not fit into the particular mold that educational institutions create are cast aside as defective. This is unacceptable and irresponsible. If we expect all of our citizens to pay taxes towards an education then we need to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to thrive in this environment. I believe that introducing Media Language and Documentary Remix to a curriculum of students with dyslexia would allow these students to compete in the world of academia. By using digital technology and remix culture, dyslexic students may be able to learn and express themselves in a language based on images, sounds, and movement - a more appropriate learning environment for visual thinkers. In a Ted Talks video Sr. Ken Robinson had this to say about our educational system. [3]
"Academia has really begun to dominate our view of intelligence because the universities have designed the system in their own image. If you think about it the whole system of education around the world is a prorated process of university entrance and the consequence is that many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not, because the thing they were good at in school wasn’t valued or was actually stigmatized. And I think we can’t afford to go on that way. I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology. One in which we start to reconstitute consciousness of the richness of the human capacity. Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip-mine the earth for a particular commodity and for the future it won’t suffice."[4]
In the world of academia I am considered ‘learning disabled’ and labeled dyslexic because my mind works differently than that of the model student. Like many other people with similar brain functions I have suffered in this industrial education system for two main reasons.
Firstly because traditional education is designed to not adapt to differences. Rather, it is designed to churn out the same person with the same skills to suite the preverbal “employer”. Instead of being celebrated, these differences are treated as defects. What most educators do not realize is that trying to get a dyslexic person to master the written language is like trying to train a tone-deaf person to conduct symphonies: an excruciating endeavor for everyone involved. Translating coded symbols into sounds is not where our strengths lie.
Not surprisingly, in this environment the student is constantly left feeling as if they are failing at ‘important’ tasks while their creative talents are treated as child’s play. This leads to the second sufferance: constantly being treated as if there is something profoundly wrong with them. If a person is treated this way long enough they eventually begin to believe it. This is directly linked to the reason so many dyslexic people suffer from depression, anxiety, and an aversion to formal education.
The only refuge I found was art. This is where I could excel, gain confidence, and keep my grade point average up. The frustration in school for me and many other people with learning differences is that subjects like biology, history, sociology, psychology, law etc. are also interesting yet unrealistic to pursue. This is because the written language, as the sole means of communicating ideas in these fields, makes the process torturous and often unrewarding.
Many people who are labeled dyslexic are in no way intellectually inferior to others, we are simply ‘different’. We have a unique way of conceptualizing thoughts and ideas, which is why we are known to be creative. Our understanding of concepts does not translate into text easily because we don’t think in words. In his book The Gift of Dyslexia Roland D. Davis’s defines the two distinctive ways people think as “verbal conceptualization” and “non verbal conceptualization”.[5] The first type helps to form thoughts with the sounds of words in a linear stream. In other words, ideas are based on vocabulary. The second is described as conceptualizing thought with images, which means that the ideas grow more three-dimensionally. From this explanation it is very transparent which type of thought process is better suited for learning through reading.
Davis believes that the unique characteristics dyslexic people have are natural perceptual ‘abilities’, which can result in above average intelligence or genius “…if not suppressed, invalidated, or destroyed by parents or the educational process”.[6] When referencing successful dyslexics such as Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Robin Williams, and Agatha Christie, Davis notes, “…their genius didn’t occur in spite of their dyslexia, but because of it!”. [7] He calls for a paradigm shift in the perception of dyslexia in order to allow dyslexic people to step outside of the frustration and shame they feel in school, so that they may use their natural abilities to succeed.
Temple Grandin wrote a book called Thinking in Pictures, which explains how her autistic mind works. In it one of the points that was surprising for me was the in-depth description of the similarities between autism and dyslexia. What is even more interesting was her explanation of why autism is the reason for her success. Temple Grandin is responsible for transforming the cattle industry in the Unites States after being approached by the McDonald’s Franchise. Her innovative designs make slaughtering animals more humane and resultantly more productive. “McDonald's is prompting the entire U.S. food industry to make "animal welfare" a major issue. And executives say they couldn't have done it without Temple Grandin.” [8]
In her book Grandin describes herself as a “visual thinker” and has noted, “language is her second language”.[9] She has attributed her success in the cattle industry to her unique ability to envision exactly what the animals’ see when they are slaughtered. Grandin imagines the adjustments to the environment of the slaughtering procedure, taking note of any triggers that could scare the cattle based on what may trigger her own sensitivities to light and sound. She then invents machines that simulate specific environments allowing the cattle to be extremely relaxed before they die.
Temple’s ‘gift’ with animals reconfigures itself into a ‘disability’ around people. She admittedly finds people to be confusing and uninteresting. People don’t make as much sense to her as animals do. The key to her success was a mother who refused to institutionalize her as doctors were advising parents to do at the time. Instead she was encouraged to pursue her interests and strengths. From there she managed to find her own way. Her ‘second language’, as in the English language, has served her well enough but it is her unique way of thinking that has made her a contributing member of society instead of an institutionalized statistic. “In order to be content, men must have the possibility of developing their intellectual and artistic powers to whatever extent accords with their personal characteristics and abilities".[10]
Dyslexics often wind up in the Arts because this environment allows us to express ourselves using the languages we speak fluently like movements, images, and sounds. This is often the only place our intelligence is recognized. For me this meant a career in drawing, painting, photography, and finally digital video art. Only recently have I integrated sound and motion into my work. I realized a few years ago that my consistent dissatisfaction with my practice was not because of the quality or content of the images but because I felt limited by the mediums. Upon entering into Ryerson’s MFA program in Documentary Media I was given the opportunity to add motion and sound to my art and for the first time I feel as though it is possible for me to communicate 100 % of my ideas.
I am now creating remix or mash up documentary. This form of film is a type of video collage that utilizes found footage from websites like YouTube, BBC, and Comedy Central as source material. Instead of shooting new footage I recycle media form the past and present to weave together narratives. This technique allows people like myself to delve into nearly any issue imaginable simply because of the plethora of media now available online. My current experience with this socially reflexive art form has made it very clear to me why I do not personally know many other dyslexic people who have made it to the graduate level. Quite simply this is because the written components of these studies are and always will be a second language to us.
I consider myself extremely lucky. Thanks to my community of family, friends and professors, I was given the freedom to venture into a field where I can express complex ideas with the help of the latest technology. Within the experimental field of remix documentary [11] I am able to leave my thoughts in their original context of media language.
Introduction Notes
[1] "Dorothea Lange - Photographer (1895-1965)," in Disabilities social history project [database online]. [cited 2008]. Available from http://www.disabilityhistory.org/people.html.
[2] Sr. Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity, ed. Ted Talks, (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html:, 2006).
[3] TED Talks is a great example of how gifted people from vastly different backgrounds gather to share their knowledge. The videos of these closed-door conferences are put on line for people to view for free. They also offer free down loads of many of the lectures.
[4] ibid.
[5] Roland D. Davis, The Gift of Dyslexia, (London, UK: Souvenir Press, 1997), 8.
[6] ibid., 5.
[7] ibid., 3.
[8] Temple Grandin, Thinking in Pictures: and Other Reports from my Life with Autism, (New York, NY: Double Day, 1995), 5.
[9] "Temple Grandin," in Wikipedia [database online]. [cited 2009]. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin.
[10] "On Truth & Reality: The spherical understanding wave structure of matter (wsm) in space," [cited 2009]. Available from http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Albert-Einstein-Quotes.htm
[11] The stile of remix is routed in experimental found footage filmmaking.
Culture Clash
Lawrence Lessig is a law professor at Stanford University who is famous for promoting international copyright reform and advocating for ‘creative commons’[1]. Lessig studies the history of remix and its importance to culture. In his latest book, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, he points out that culture always builds on the past. Lessig argues that remix is “…the modern day equivalent of quoting authors in papers and books.” He describes this art form as “…a type of literacy [and] a form of expression that is increasingly defining young generations”.[2] This language that Lessig speaks of is a digital call and response culture where source material is recycled repeatedly to expand on ideas and provoke social discourse.
He attributes the international expansion of remix to Web 2.0 and user-generated sites like YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook, where the sharing of music, videos, and ideas have encouraged a ‘read /write’ (RW) culture [3] that allows its users to reappropriate, reorganize, and reevaluate the media. In Remix Lessig argues that the age of Web 2.0 and the opportunity it provides the ‘common person’ to contribute to our culture has helped in the democratization of media. Lessig’s contention is that recent copyright legislation has made the building blocks for culture sharing and reflexive art illegal. He argues that this is impossible to maintain because we cannot dispose of copying technology so there is no way to stop the act of file sharing. Instead, the government can only criminalize the act-- effectively created an entire generation of criminals who do not think that ‘sharing’ is a crime. He warns that our restrictive laws on the use of copyright material are leading to a generation who has no respect for—and therefore breaks--laws. This lawyer does not believe that giving harsher punishments for file sharing and remix is the answer. Rather, he believes they are part of the problem.
Lessig’s arguments for ‘fair use' [4] and creative commons outline a more economically and socially conscientious approach to the ownership of ideas and cultural artifacts. I appreciate Lessig’s mission to reform copyright law since I use remix as a reflexive form of sociopolitical commentary. I also relate to his definition of remix as a form of ‘literacy’ because it is a more comprehensive language for me than text ever was. [5] The ability to utilize our vast digital library is extremely important for what I believe could be an updated technique for dealing with dyslexic students as well as the thousands of young people who are labeled ‘illiterate’ or ‘drop outs’. We do not blame the child for their parents’ mistakes, so why does it make sense to blame the student when their educational system fails them?
Remix or mash up could be helpful for anyone who is a visual thinker as it allows us to become more than just receptacles for media. When we appropriate and recontextualize the media that bombard us everyday, we become producers as well consumers-- effectively becoming literate in the media language of which Lessig speaks. In an essay called Waking Bush: Tactical Media As Play,Graham Meikle discusses why playing with media can be so effective for learning and self-expression. “Play as progress, play as identity, and play as the self” are accurate descriptions of the phases of reflexivity that remix artists go through when creating these narratives. [6] This type of interactive learning is what has driven me and people around the world to spend long hours mashing up media in order to define its meaning for ourselves. By doing this we undermine the mainstream medias monopoly on the depiction of our world.
Meikle identifies this process as “tactical media”.[7] He explains how the controversial Bush administration combined with Web 2.0 technology created the perfect environment for the YouTube/remix generation to emerge. Cheep DYI (do it yourself) media is often made by those who feel aggravated by, or excluded from, public policy and social discourse. They need an outlet. “Tactile media exploits the potential of new communication technologies for this purpose”.[8] Meikle believes the remix aesthetic has become the fundamental logic of all cultural production because it emphasizes an essential rewrite of history through the consumer’s eyes.
This theory defines “play” as essential to engaging citizens in discourse and thus democracy. Meikle’s historical reference to “detournment” dates back to the Situationists of 50’s and 60’s who believed we needed to “to stop seeing things though the eyes of the community, of ideology, of family, of other people…and to take oneself at the starting point." [9]
Culture Clash Notes
[1]"Creative Commons," [cited 2009]. Available from http://creativecommons.org/. Creative commons is a community of artist, intellectuals, scientists. It is also a movement meant to combat the serious problem we have with out dated copyright laws. The members of this community go there for inspiration, collaboration, and to discuss the future of ideas.
[2] Lawrence Lessig, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, (New York: The Penguin Press, 2008), 1.
[3] ibid., 28. R/W (read /write culture) is culture that not only consumes but also produces. This concept has been around since the invention of the gramophone. The idea being that we learn form reading and writing or in this case watching media and responding by rewriting it.
[4] Kembrew McLeod, Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity, (New York: Double Day, 2005), 329. Fair use is a piece of legislation that, if granted, allows a person who dos not hold a copyright on a particular piece of writing, film, etc to use it with out the owners permission. The law is not well defined and very hard to argue. The people who are aloud this write most often are journalists. What about the rest of us?
[5] Lessig, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, 53.
[6] Graham Meikle, "Whacking Bush: Tactical Media as Play," in Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times, ed. Megan Boler.(USA: The MIT Press, 2008), 378.
[7] ibid. 375-375. Meikle defines tactical media as satirical, mobile, relevant, temporary, novel, and ephemeral.
[8] ibid. 375-375.
[9] "Detournement," in Wikipedia [database online]. [cited 2008]. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detournement.
Punchlines for Progress
In my remix documentary Punchlines for Progress I explored detournment in the form of play, by mashing up media from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, and today. I appropriated every piece of video shown in my 45-minute mash up, creating a streamlined narrative that connected a select few who have fought unjust laws for our first amendment rights. When beginning my research I gravitated towards comedians because of their role as social critics.
The court jester [1] is an iconic symbol of power and tomfoolery that reaches back to the days of Shakespeare. Our jesters today come in the form of political satirists like John Stewart. He emerged and grew powerful during the second Bush administration, as our once trusted news sources became cheerleaders of propaganda for the war on terror.
Stewarts’ comedic news program The Daily Show appeals to a postmodern sentiment of skepticism about the ‘truth’ as presented by mainstream media. Many of the news networks in America seem to have tried to rewrite this shift. Stewart on the other hand embodies it.[2] He reads between the headlines and projects a demystified translation of our democracy’s inadequacies while crossing party lines in a way that politicians can only pretend to appreciate.
Humor became the only acceptable form of political criticism directly after 9-11. A deafening silence descended over the entire nation after the attack on the Twin Towers. News agencies, university professors, and political leaders were forced to censor themselves from presenting opposing viewpoints while waiting for a safe time to speak up. Those who thought it unlikely that Saddam Hussein had sponsored the terrorist attacks of 9-11 or had WMDs watched in horror as American soldiers—despite findings by the U.N. and in defiance of the opinion of many U.S. allies—were sent to invade Iraq. While the Bush regime and their complicit media puppets infected Americans from coast to coast with fear mongering, The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live, stand up comedians, and politically engaged artist of all kinds were the first to speak their minds. The Daily Show specifically had the advantage of providing laughter, relevance, and centrist political commentary in a digestible form for disempowered citizen between the ages of 16-60.
The United States’ projected patriotism during the early 2000’s was exhausting. The term un-American was thrown around by our media and government, effectively brainwashing the naive and terrifying those who understood the obedience these terms were meant to instill. In this environment, those in power who played it safe lived to fight another day, but it left many outraged and shockingly misrepresented. This unvocalized indignation soon turned into disempowerment and quite simply the desire to be distracted. People like myself needed this release but we still felt the need to be informed.
As Noam Chomsky has pointed out time and time again, the media is not to be trusted. This is not for lack of dedicated journalists who really are after ‘the truth’.
During WWI our government figured out how to control “the bewildered herd” [3] and has been playing the same propaganda game ever since. The idea was to keep us afraid so we would go along with just about anything, or at least obey. In a climate with this type of “manufactured consent”[4], terms like ‘un-American’ and ‘terrorist sympathizer’ are not labels that many people can sustain before their jobs are at stake. Many people were aware of these tactics and made the choice not to engage at all. For these reasons it is no surprise that people began to turn away from traditional news agencies. “Part of the reason for Stewart’s popularity over the years is that people feel a fundamental lack of trust in mainstream media, and Stewart’s comedy validates, the reason for this mistrust."[5]
Megan Boler and Stephen Turpinthe coauthors of The Daily Show and Crossfire: Satire and Sincerity as Truth to Power believe that Stewart’s success shows a “…renewed demand for truthfulness and accountability expressed by consumers of US news media.”[6] Stewart represents the “distracted center”,[7] the show sees exposing the corrupted news media as its patriotic duty. Stewart says, “…it comes from feeling displaced from society."[8]”
The Daily Show directed the masses away from the increasingly right wing conservative media, which had become cheerleaders for the war on terror. Politically engaged artists were arrested and outspoken professors were removed from their positions. Anyone who dared to discus how American foreign policy had contributed to the growth of terrorism was considered a direct threat to ‘The American’ way of life and under close watch by the paranoid government. The term ‘un American’ was thrown around in the media like the word ‘communist’ was during the ‘red scare’ and the McCarthy hearings. For the first time I began to understand what Fascism means. Until then I only new it as an undemocratic method of governing that happened in other parts of the world.
Punchlines for Progress Notes
Meagan Boler ed., Digital Media and Democracy,Anonymous (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009), 391. The court jester or ‘wise fool’, is commonly the figure who speaks truth to power in the tradition of political satire. In times marked by these feelings of descent and the narrowing of press freedom and band with, political satire thrives.”
[2] ibid., 386, 398.
[3] Noam Chomsky, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda, 2nded. (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2002), 16.
[4] ibid., 14.
[5] Boler, Digital Media and Democracy, 397.
[6] ibid., 385.
[7] ibid., 389.
[8] ibid., 389.
The Power of Play
Satirists like Lenny Bruce [1] and George Carlin, who were persecuted while fighting for their first amendment rights,[2] paved the way for the thousands of comedians today who mock our cultural establishments. John Stewart, a self proclaimed court jester, rose to the top of the genre, becoming the voice of reason for thousands of unrepresented, rational, ordinary citizens who were simply unable to access the media like he could. Stewart’s detournment in the form of play proved a very useful model for free speech in a time of great silence.
"When Americans were asked in a 2007 poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press to name the journalist they most admired, Mr. Stewart, the fake news anchor, came in at No. 4, tied with the real news anchors Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw of NBC, Dan Rather of CBS and Anderson Cooper of CNN. And a study this year from the center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism concluded that “ ‘The Daily Show’ is clearly impacting American dialogue” and “getting people to think critically about the public square". [3]
There are three major components to the success of The Daily Show. It is incredibly funny, and by engaging its audience through play, Stewart and his writers are able to bait their audience. Fans watch it regularly as it is representative of how many of us feel about the failings of our media and government. Finally, it has utilized the art of mash up to make all of its programming relevant and digestible.
This jesters penetrating sociopolitical commentary is effective because it uses the tactile media language that is, as Meikle’s points out, becoming the fundamental logic of our cultural discourse. [4] By reworking, restating, and recombining our media culture, Stewart is rewriting media history as it happens. Stewart has been labeled by the mainstream media as a ‘fake news show” program because it exhibits juvenile humor regularly. However I believe it is this ability to bait our youth with humor that will give him unquestionable significance in the years to come.
Returning to the issue of creating an educational system more likely to invoke the talents, understanding, and interest of a broader range of students, The Daily Show sets a good example of how play can entice the disempowered. The shows use of tactical media production could be taught in our educational systems as well. This type of critical discourse is important because during the formative years a person can begin to create complex ideas. If missed, this fundamental development can stunt intellectual growth and create a society of uninspired drones. Dyslexic students are not the only people failing to be engaged. It would be desirable to find suitable alternatives to the status quo in schools at all levels. One of these alternatives should be remix as it is already engaging our youth outside of academia and is very clearly becoming a dialogue of its own.
I am not suggesting that remix replace literacy in the traditional sense. Reading and writing is, and always will be, a critical part of communication. After all it is John Stewart’s team of writers and remix artists who are making the success of The Daily Show possible. Remix should be taught as a second language just as Spanish or French is offered to students now. This media language could work well to engage those who are not naturally receptive to text. It would provide them with a different way to develop their potential for complex thought, inquiry, and exploration. Different is good!
The remix process would help students with writing because the nature of remix involves all of the most important elements of writing. Its chapters, key points, quotations, research material, and linear construction are essentially the same learning process. I have experienced this first hand. Where these two means of communication differ is in the tools used to acquire and synthesize ideas. Using technology to work with a student’s talents instead of against the learning difference is the key here. These are alternative linguistic tools to be utilized and built upon. Using them is one way to make the classroom more relevant in the world in which these children live. When we are toddlers we learn that trying to fit a square peg in a round hole is pointless. We must not forget this lesson with individuals.
The Power of Play Notes
Normal 0 0 1 315 1801 15 3 2211 11.1282 0 0 0 [1] "Lenny Bruce," in http://en.wikipedia.org [database online]. [cited 2009]. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenny_Bruce. “On October 4, 1961 Bruce was arrested for obscenity at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco; he had used the word cocksucker and riffed that "'to' is a preposition, 'come' is a verb" and that the sexual context of "come" is so common that it bears no weight, and that if someone hearing it becomes upset, he "probably can't come." Although the jury acquitted him, other law enforcement agencies began monitoring his appearances, resulting in frequent arrests under charges of obscenity...The specification this time was that the comedian had used the word "schmuck", an insulting Yiddish term.”
[2] "First Amendment to the United States Constitution," in Wikipedia [database online]. [cited 2009]. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution. First Amendment to the United States Constitution: “The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that expressly prohibits the United States Congress from making laws ‘respecting an establishment of religion’ or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, infringe the freedom of speech, infringe the freedom of the press, limit the right to peaceably assemble, or limit the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Although the First Amendment only explicitly applies to the Congress, the Supreme Court has interpreted it as applying to the executive and judicial branches. Additionally, in the 20th century, the Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies the limitations of the First Amendment to each state, including any local government within a state.”
[3] Michiko Kakutani, "Is This The Most Trusted Man In America?" The New York Times, August 17, 2008, sec. Arts & Leisure, p. 1.
[4] Meikle, Whacking Bush: Tactical Media as Play, 375.
Living Language
My interest in the art of remix goes beyond simply helping students as this means of communication is obviously much further reaching than academia. As Lessig points out in REMIX, “[f]or most of the Middle ages the elite spoke and wrote in Latin. The masses did not. What was important to the elites was thus inaccessible to the masses”.[1] Though it was the basis of the romance languages, Latin is now considered a dead language while Spanish, French, and Portuguese are still used. Because it was written in a vernacular that the masse did not understand, Latin became irrelevant. People who read Latin today are still part of the elite and specialized class. This hierarchy of knowledge is what academic writing emulates today. "[F]or the masses, however, most information is gathered through other forms of media: TV, film, music and music video. These forms of “writing are the vernacular of today. They are the kind of writing that matters most to most".[2]
Those of us who focus our lives mastering academics are often removed from ‘the masses’. Our research continues to be inaccessible to the majority of society. What a waste! I for one am uninterested in merely creating paper trails of my findings to be circulated amongst the intellectual elite. I want to be heard and more importantly understood by communities outside of this small group.
One of the ways I have made this possible is by adapting my academic work to this alternative language now evolving online. Remix helps me communicate with others through familiar images and sounds. Lessig believes it is the emotional and historical references we have to these images and sounds that sets up an easily decipherable code, which in turn produces a strong relay of information. These references are similar to the connection many cultures have to their classical texts and oral histories. I believe this is why I could get away with using highly pixilated video from the civil rights movement in my documentary Punchlines for Progress. It was not the quality of the images that ignited emotion in the audience. Instead I relied on the cultural significances they already hold to escort the viewer back to the time period, and thus contextualizing the significance of the following discussion.
Documentary is known for utilizing this technique but the concept of connecting the present and past is done in drama as well. “Best known for stealing from the rich and giving to the poor Robin… has become a symbol of justice against greed and tyranny.”[3] The story of Robin Hood continues to come back time and time again because people have always related to his mission. This does not mean that each generation watches the same old stage performance or black and white movie. Quite the contrary. Each generation recreates the tale using the latest technological advances in story telling, as well as current story lines: effectively reclaiming the story for themselves.
Frost/ Nixon, directed by Ron Howard in 2007, is a good example of why retelling is not only popular but also important for recognizing patterns within our society. This dramatic reenactment of the famous interview of Richard Nixon by David Frost in 1977 is an important piece of history to be reintroduced to younger generations who did not live through these dark days. The similarities between Nixon’s defense of his decision to invade Cambodia and George W Bush’s reasons for invading Iraq are strikingly similar. Ron Howard’s decision to reenact a three decades old story at that particular time reminded us that Nixon’s explanations were echoed by the Bush administration. This revealed the same old rhetoric that the war-mongers, who sometimes prevail in US government, have been using to justify murderous rampages for generations. The comparison cannot be overlooked by people who witnessed the media frenzy that swept over America after September 11th.
The retelling of this story with today’s actors resonated with a new generation by giving us more emotional attachment to the historical event. At a pivotal moment in American history Ron Howard’s updated retelling of these interviews helped to enlighten a new generation while serving as a reminder for those mature enough to have witnessed the fall of Nixon first hand. Howard used bits of the original footage from the Frost vs. Nixon interview to set the stage for the time period and to remind us of the historical content we were witnessing. With its grainy quality of sound and image he transported us back to the 70’s, allowing younger people to relive those moments as if they were their own.
This type of historical footage is very valuable to the media corporations that own it and thus difficult to commandeer. Obviously Ron Howard has access to these kinds of resources but the rest of us don’t. Why not? Shouldn’t we be able to utilize this footage as well? After all, wealthy and well-connected people are not the only ones with poignant social commentary to share. We all need to have the opportunity to use our cultural artifacts to draw parallels like these. Isn’t the ability to take from our history to inform the present included in our freedoms?
Living Language Notes
[1]Lessig, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, 68.
[2] ibid., 68.
[3] Brendan O'Neil, "Robin Hood: Why Does Robin Hood Keep Coming Back," BBC News, April 23, 2009, p. 1.
Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique and utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion.
~T.S. Eliot, 1922
Free Culture
As our digital world continues to build virtual libraries much of our media gets stored in massive online databases. What rights do we have to use these sources of information or any cultural artifacts for that matter? What effect does copyright law have on our creative freedom and our ability to reflect upon society? Does social commentary rely on these artifacts and if so who decides what is fair game? In 2008 the world's first ‘open source’ documentary, RIP: A Remix Manifesto, presented these issues to an international audience that stretched from classrooms in Canada, to international film festivals in the Netherlands; to Israel’s YES TV. It received standing ovations and aggressive condemnation all along the way.
In the film the director Bret Gaylor explains why he breaks international copyright laws and encourages others to do the same. The documentary’s outstanding international success has contributed immensely to the solidarity among younger generations who have a much different understanding of file sharing and remix culture than their parents. As I write this, media moguls are lobbying for more restrictive fair use regulations and more severe punishments for those of us who dare to defy the major corporations that ‘own’ our media and thus much of our culture.
RIP openly confronts these giants by laying out the history of copyright’s transformation over the last half century as capitalism has given way to corporatism. While breaking hundreds of copyright laws, Gaylor showed us where the idea of copyright came from, who it was intended to help, and whom it actually serves today. RIP discussed the improbability of copyright legislation surviving in its current state when it is impossible to control copying technology. Joining Gaylor in his crusade for free culture are Lawrence Lessig with his legal expertise on copyright reform, Cory Doctorow’s break down of hypocritical digital taboos, words of wisdom from Brazil’s minister of culture, and a scientist named Greg Gilmore who gave up his career to become the international remix Panamanian known as Girl Talk.
These men question how long hording culture will be considered a legitimate business when so much of the world does not buy into the corporate concept of intellectual property. Throughout their discussions we get a taste of how other societies deal with the sharing of ideas and find out that our own laws are endangering our freedom of expression.
Surprisingly, The National Film Board of Canada supports the message of this movie. The NFB provided 40% of the budget for the documentary and the majority of its publicity and distribution costs. The oldest and most respected documentary organization in the history of Canada, an organization funded by taxpayer dollars, is supporting this flagrant slap in the face to copyright law. No wonder Canada was just put on Americas Copyright Piracy Watch List.
Canada, China and Russia are among 12 countries targeted by the Obama administration Thursday for failing to sufficiently protect U.S. producers of music, movies and other copyrighted material from widespread piracy. The U.S. placed the 12 countries on a "priority watch list" that will subject them to extra scrutiny and could lead to economic sanctions if the administration decides to bring trade cases before the World Trade Organization.
Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy of France has taken a very different approach to the copyright wars than the NFB. In early April 2009 France became the most aggressive opponent to file sharers when they passed the controversial “three-strikes-and-you’re-out”-legislation otherwise know as HADOPI-law. This new legislation made it possible for an individual to be completely cut of from the Internet if they were accused, not proven guilty, of downloading free music or movies. Their Internet providers merely had to send three letters of accusation to a subscriber to suspend the person’s access for up to a year. Though Sarkozy has been applauded by media industry giants, international outrage has also been expressed. Being cut off from the information highway is clearly considered too severe inside France as well, because by the second week of June The French Constitutional Council announced the law was unconstitutional and declared it null and void. No doubt this decision was influence by the EU, which set up an early roadblock.
A week before the passing of the HADOPI-law the European Parliament introduced a measure prohibiting EU governments from terminating a user's Internet access without a court order. The European Parliament at the same time adopted an amendment saying that, "Internet access is a fundamental right such as the freedom of expression and the freedom to access information", as defined by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
Regardless of this win for culture sharing, there are still plenty of governments who are unofficially looking at this type of legislation for themselves. Among them are the US, Canada, and Japan.
This type of restriction is infuriating for artists like myself who engage in social discourse through media mash up and use it as a legitimate language. Imagine a child who is taught to read but never allowed to write, or allowed to write but told that they have to come up with their own vocabulary to express themselves. This would be an extremely interesting challenge for a person like Shakespeare, but is it the most effective way of communicating? Since the tradition of documentary began certain images have imbedded themselves in our minds because of their cultural significance.
Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother is an iconic image from the Great Depression years in the 1930’s. Who has the rights to it? Should it belong to Lange or do her funders get the rights to it? Shouldn’t the poor woman in the photograph be able to claim its profits? What about her bashful children. Do they even have the right to a copy? As for those of us who were born long after the Depression, can’t we claim it as our cultural heritage? Over the years these questions were asked and proven to have no definitive answer. How could they? This document is much more than simply an object to be owned. It has been discussed by scholars for decades and still no words can replace it. The old saying ‘a picture is worth a 1000 words’ was inspired by images such as this.
Today everyone has the ability to capture these moments. September 11th is a perfect example of how much media making has changed. Unsuspecting people on the street of Manhattan captured many of the terrifying moments of brutality on their cell phones. Who owns those images? How do we put a price on them? Is it even right to? Again these are questions that don’t have definitive answers, but what can be verified is that these images are part of our collective memories. They are international symbols of the terror we all witnessed on that day, and therefore part of our visual vocabulary. With each moment captured and exported, our media vocabulary grows larger and more robust. It makes no sense to be cut off from this widely understood language?
However this is precisely what media conglomerates are doing to people who have the desire to remix in order to make sense of it all. We are speaking in a language that has the potential of expressing things that writing simply cannot. Being cut off from using these images to express ourselves is repressive and violation to our first amendment rights. Music, movies, and new media technology also has very specific cultural relevance. As our understanding of the world becomes increasingly more cinematic, these art forms become part of the vocabulary as well.
Kembrew McLeod is an American journalist, performance artist, activist, music historian, and satirical critic of the ownership wars. His book Freedom of Expression is an out right attack on corporate control over our language, culture, creativity and commerce. Through his analysis of current trademark and copyright laws, we learn about the corruption that drives the ownership wars. From the exploitation of human genes to the vast restrictions on our freedom of expression, McLeod explains how greed in our capitalist economy has made a mockery of our rights to access and respond to our own culture. He chronicles the concept of intellectual property by explaining the positive and negative effects it has had on societies since it’s inception in the early eighteenth- century. In one example of the issues we face today McLeod references a unique case in our medical system.
The peculiar case of John Moore couldn’t have happened without the expansion of patent law in the past quarter sentry. When Moore’s spleen was removed to treat a rare form of leukemia, his university of California doctor patented a cell line taken from his organ, without Moore’s knowledge or permission. The long term market value of the patent has been estimated at roughly 3 billion, and Moore’s doctor received 3 million in stock from Genetics Institute, the firm that marketed and developed a drug based on the patent. When Moore found out about the shenanigans he sued and lost. The California Supreme court clamed that giving Moore any rights would lead to the comodification of the human body.
This was a logical decision as it is the same reason our courts have given for making prostitution illegal. Our government has taken the moral high road by not giving people the right to profit off their bodies (unless you’re a model, an athlete, a sperm donor, or a human guinea pig for science, in which case it is apparently okay.).
Imagine for a moment if book publishers outlawed the lending of books. There would be no libraries. What if reading books aloud was a crime as well? Then every parent who read to their child would be a criminal. Ridiculous? Well, this is precisely what Adobe and many other e-book publishers achieved with the help of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
If that wasn’t enough, Adobe e-book software also disabled the voice synthesis function on people’s computers in order to ‘protect’ e-books like Alice and Wonderland. Tampering with this technology has gotten people fines and even thrown in jail. Up until 2003 these laws were responsible for keeping blind people form accessing certain e-books like Alice in Wonderland. Only after the American Foundation for the Blind defended the rights of blind people to take part in literary work did the Librarian of Congress agree to have the voice synthesis locks taken off the e-books. If this is the kind of legislation that is being passed for digital copyright holders, what rights do we have? What other rights would they try to take away?
In the entertainment industry McLeod believes that corporatism is suffocating our culture’s creative progress. He points out that copying technology has been persecuted every time a new medium has come around. Those afraid they will lose money and control of intellectual property are always on the attack, using money and influence to control the distribution of our cultural heritage. Time and time again those who opposed copying technologies have been proven wrong as the profit margins always improve regardless of ‘piracy’ and opposition. It’s as simple as understanding the value in ‘word of mouth’ advertising.
The Disney Corporation is one of the best examples of how greed can lead to lack of foresight. In the early 80’s Disney completely rejected the idea of selling their movies on VHS. Their main concern was losing money. They thought that if consumers watched a movie more than once or invited friends over to watch it for free they would be losing potential revenue. Disney’s original solution to this was to create cassettes that locked up after you watched them. If you wanted to watch it a second time you would have to take it back to the store and pay a fee to have it unlocked.
Now imagine for a moment how widespread illiteracy would be if Disney and Adobe were in control when the printing press was invented. Luckily, capitalism was not nearly as evolved back then. And lucky for Disney, that VHS lock technology was never given credence, thus enabling millions of children to watch their movies over and over and over again; creating a multi billion dollar market of mouse addicted kids begging for Mickey merchandise.
Still the ‘Big Five’ are not letting go of anything. Time Warner, Disney, News Corporation, Bertelsmann, and Viacom now control most of the media industry in the U.S.; General Electric is a close sixth. In 1983 there were 50 major media players. “More than 1 in 4 Internet users in the U.S. now log in with AOL Time-Warner, the world's largest media corporation”. In just 26 years 45 of them have been gobbled up. Now these five conglomerates are competing to control anything and everything media based. How can democracy be achieved when so few voices can actually be heard?
Chicken Little
The risk we face today is that the free exchange of ideas could be halted by recent trends in intellectual property- with dire consequence for creativity and the human spirit. [xliv]
~ Kembrew McLeod, 2005
Since audio recording was first invented people have been predicting the apocalyptic demise of the artist’s livelihood. First it was the phonograph that would replace musicians’ jobs. Ironically, those who refused to be recorded are nearly all forgotten now. Then it was radio that dared to play music for free. Once again the argument was that the market for live shows and albums would disappear. Anyone in the music business today could attest to how misled those worries were. Next it was Cable TV, the Napster of the 80’s; the original copyright-infringing thieves that would surely be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Even though cable became big business, Hollywood some how managed to hang on, until the VCR threatened to put everyone out of business.
In 1982 Jack Valenti, the CEO of The Motion Picture Association of America, had this to say to the US Congress, “I say to you the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Straggler is to the woman home alone.” [xlv] But wouldn’t you know it, even though VCRs got bought up by millions of would-be thieves, Hollywood’s box office receipts have steadily increased. Also, just as a little bonus, the VHS and DVD sales now bring in another $11.9 billion a year for the entertainment industry.[xlvi] The market doesn’t implode with technological advances. It actually expands. So what does Jack Valenti have to say about movie downloads now? “It is becoming clear- alarmingly clear, I might add-- that we are in the midst of the possibility of an Armageddon.”[xlvii] And that, “[h]ollywood will be brought to its knees by the digital anarchy perpetrated by twelve-year-olds.[xlviii] (AKA file sharing ‘digital natives’[xlix])
Shockingly, now it’s the digital revolution that will ruin the fabric of our culture. As McLeod points out, it seems as though media corporations have been reliving a ‘chicken little’ moment. However the sky is not falling! He believes a more accurate reality is that all these unfounded accusations accomplish is the suppression of our personal freedoms and creative abilities.
McLeod argues the benefits of these new technologies completely outweigh the problems. He sites digital media and social networking sites like YouTube and MySpace as having the “…potential to disseminate a more diverse and democratic array of art than ever bubbled up through the cultural industries of old”. [l]
This is precisely what media tycoons don’t want because they make their millions controlling what media is disseminated. They fail to mention that the sharing of music through mixed tapes has been the catalyst to music careers such as The Grateful Dead, The Dave Mathews Band, and Metallica (though this last band seems to have forgotten that over the years).[li] This sharing and mixing of music is also responsible for the explosion of hip-hop and new hybrid music genres over the last three decades. The music industry does not want people to know these things because then they can’t use the argument that pirates are jeopardizing the artist ability to thrive. If anything, it is the music industry that is limiting the musicians’ outreach by controlling their medium.
Before Web 2.0[lii] those same five major media conglomerates have been able to keep the masses thinking that copyright is still working to support the original creator. But in the last decade web technologies have opened the door for the average person to voice their opinion to an international audience. This new “freeware” has been provided by a culture that supports, and profits off of, the free exchange of their creations. This shift in communication and commerce could not have been possible if not for thousands of software writers who have transcended complicated HTML web codes to produce user- friendly social networking sites. Now that you don’t have to be a computer scientist to communicate online we are quickly approaching an international free exchange of ideas. We are beginning to contribute to the writing o f history with websites like Wikipedia, the world’s first democratic encyclopedia.
On the other hand well-established media makers have dedicated their lives to controlling information. They have a lot of money, power, and influence throughout the political and entertainment worlds. After all, this is their business and they are very good at it. They would much prefer we just left it up to them. Fortunately, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, envisioned it as an international tool to help expand the scope of communication and thus knowledge. So at least the technology is on our side. Still these goliath media conglomerates will not be taken down without a fight.
The Politics of Piracy
On April 17th 2009 the men behind the world’s most notorious file sharing site since Napster were found guilty of copyright infringement. Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde were fined $3.6 million total and each sentenced to a year in jail. The crime they committed was creating a Google-like site that located free movies, music, and software. They hosted no illegal material themselves but created a search engine for ‘bit torrent’[liii] users and suppliers to connect online. Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Bros, EMI and Columbia Pictures all had a problem with this and collectively sued the men for the copyright infringement on 33 movies and music tracks. These corporations believed that they had lost over $17 million worth of sales because of this site.[liv]
“The Pirate Bay Four insist that their site is about advancing freedom of speech, cultural sharing, and individual privacy”[lv]. Amongst their supporters Pirate Bay is considered a digital Robin Hood who has no sympathy for corporate copyright holders. “Peter Sunde, a spokesman for Pirate Bay, says that rights-holders should not be chasing pirates; they should be developing new business models for generating revenue from file-sharing.”[lvi] According to Mark Mulligan from Forrester Research, this is precisely what they are doing.
There is already a massive program of modernization in place by the music industry. Recorders, publishers, and artists have all recognized that the future of the music business is going to be a very different one than the last 30 or 40 years. And I think there is a poetic symmetry here in what has happened today because this case was in Sweden. Pirate Bay is one face of free music, the illegal side. Also out of Sweden, which is one of the buzzes of the moment, ‘Spotify’ a legal free music service. This is one real example of how the music industry is building a new business around new ways of distributing music. [lvii]
This is a pretty drastic change of heart for an industry that thinks “free” is a dirty word. What Mulligan was really saying is, we know we cannot stop people from sharing music and we know there is money to be made off of it, so we will control that industry too. I see nothing poetic about major corporations trying to in act a cultural land grab at the expense of the rest of us. The coded truth behind this is simply, thanks for all the hard work Pirate Bay. Now that we have criminalized your activities we’re just going to go ahead and take the ‘free’ business model you have helped create, along with all your customers. [lviii] It’s a hostile takeover and corporations have been doing it since they gained the power to do so.
The millions of dollars in revenue the music industry claims to have lost are not actual dollar amounts. They are projections based on the number of users who specifically went to other sites to share music. This market was not developed by the music industry; it was developed in spite of it, by average people who understand the benefits of sharing. We have all partaken in this. Whether it was the lending of a DVD, or duplicating your favorite essays for a class hand out. At some point we have all broken copyright laws. We do this as a means of exposing people to what we think is valuable information. When did sharing become a dirty word? And why must the music industry have the rights to the tradition of sharing that is as old as civilization itself?
On July 29th 2009 the BBC announced that Spotify was releasing an application designed to allow users to stream music from their free music databases and temporarily store play lists to their Iphones. The application will have a subscription fee of around $20 US a month. Finally the music industry has given into what Pirate Bay and file shares have been suggesting for years. They are now offering a much more affordable and realistic way of delivering music to the masses.
However three major problems still exist that will not eradicate piracy. First, this business model takes even more ownership away from its users, as we still won’t have the right to a hard copy any of this ‘free’ music. Second, the same big music industry still controls what we have access to. And lastly, this business model only allows its subscribers to interact with media through consumption.
The Pirate Bay conviction may have been a landmark case for the music and entertainment industry, but only the future will be able to tell if it truly worked in their favor.
After a raid on Pirate Bay servers in 2006, the number of registered users grew from 1 million to 2.7 million and the number of peer-servers soared from 2.5 million to 12 million. Now, following the conviction of the Pirate Bay Four? “Defeat” is turning “piracy” into a movement. “Piracy” is going political! [lix]
What the industry giants don’t understand about the draw of this free system is that it’s communal. It’s a bit like karma: you put in what you take out. It’s about connection to communities that understand the importance of exposing others to their favorite music, movies, TV, and software. Its biggest value is what it represents and who it helps, not it’s potential product margins.
Just because a music corporation says they will allow us to listen to music for ‘free’ does not mean that they will allow us to do with it what we please. In other words we are still not allowed to remix. But if a person bought a table, brought it home, dismantled it, built four chairs out of it, and give them to friends, no one would complain. No one would even protest if that person sold them, in fact people would probably just be impressed by the ingenuity and thus value them for the builders’ creativity. So why can’t we do that with a song, or a movie? I have the right to burn it, scratch it, and play Frisbee with it but I don’t have the right to share it or create with it?
Ironically enough, there is now a political party who understands this dilemma. “The Pirate Party’ — inspired by but separate from Pirate Bay — seeks to elect legislators to advance the “pirate” agenda of Internet freedom.”[lx] The party was launched in Sweden in 2006 and initially attracted around 15,000 members. After the conviction of the Pirate Bay Four the party swelled to 49,000 Swedes. It seems as though the Swedish government underestimated how serious their citizens are about Pirate Bay and its efforts towards freedom of speech, freedom of information, and the openness of the Internet. “The Pirate Party is now the third-largest political party in Sweden. Its membership is larger than Sweden’s Green Party, the Left Party, the Liberal Party, the Christian Democrats and the Centre Party.” [lxi]
In a humorous turn of events, media giants have helped the Pirate Party win 7.13%[lxii] of the Swedish vote in elections for European parliament, entitling it to at least one seat. It seems this pesky little group of sticky fingered Techies are spreading like a rash as Pirate Parties pop up all over the world. In the last three months they have been registered or are in the process of getting registered in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland, Romania, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States. [lxiii]
Obviously there is something more going on here than just some twelve-year-old kids who don’t want to pay for the new Britney Spears album.
Conclusion
I have been given all of the assistance a dyslexic person could hope for within our educational system and still I struggle to keep up. What about those who are not recognized as different, only dumb, slow, or lazy? What do we have to offer these individuals and what could they offer us? We are undergoing a shift in our understanding of intelligence, learning, and language, how fast our educational system will adapt is up to us. If remix can help in any way it should be utilized not criminalized.
As Lawrence Lessig has said in lectures, books, and blogs, “the communication techniques used by remix artist are no different than the ones documentarians have used for the last 50 years. The difference is that these techniques have now been democratized”. Since postmodernism our culture has understood that there is no singular truth, we need not regress by further consolidating media providers. Instead we should be expanding our options.
My objective is to encourage people to view themselves as viable alternative sources of information by encouraging the growth of new ways of communicating. I am not alone in this as many people are beginning to understand that democracy is not a destination but journey. We are begging to see that this cultural land grab, this manifest destiny of the media is not in our best interest. It was designed for a consumer culture that is still alive but is now ready to produce as well. It will have to evolve, as we do not the reverse.
We need not be scared of this new way of communicating nor worry that it is the decline of our culture, as we know it. It is reasonable to expect previous generations to question the value of new ones but there is no reason to demonize us, not when there is so much potential for cultural growth. If remix is a fad then it will cease to exist as soon as the novelty wares off. Then those who combat its relevance will be appeased. On the other hand if this media hungry culture grows as steadily as it has for the last decade, then we may be witnessing the birth of a new cross cultural language. Because of this massive culture shift I believe we may be entering in to a time when the quality of an idea is more important than the ownership of it.
We human beings have the ability to express ourselves in a seemingly infinite number of ways as we constantly build on the foundations of our past. Whether it be documentary, debate, destruction, or digital technology we will always communicate through our creations. It is our nature, our livelihood, and our future.
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[i] "Dorothea Lange - Photographer (1895-1965)," in Disabilities social history project [database online]. [cited 2008]. Available from http://www.disabilityhistory.org/people.html.
[ii] Sr. Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity, ed. Ted Talks, (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html:, 2006).
[iii] TED Talks is a great example of how gifted people from vastly different backgrounds gather to share their knowledge. The videos of these closed-door conferences are put on line for people to view for free. They also offer free down loads of many of the lectures.
[iv] ibid.
[v] Roland D. Davis, The Gift of Dyslexia, (London, UK: Souvenir Press, 1997), 8.
[vi] ibid., 5.
[vii] ibid., 3.
[viii] Temple Grandin, Thinking in Pictures: and Other Reports from my Life with Autism, (New York, NY: Double Day, 1995), 5.
[ix] "Temple Grandin," in Wikipedia [database online]. [cited 2009]. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin.
[x] "On Truth & Reality: The spherical understanding wave structure of matter (wsm) in space," [cited 2009]. Available from http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Albert-Einstein-Quotes.htm.
[xi] The stile of remix is routed in experimental found footage filmmaking.
[xii] "Creative Commons," [cited 2009]. Available from http://creativecommons.org/. Creative commons is a community of artist, intellectuals, scientists. It is also a movement meant to combat the serious problem we have with out dated copyright laws. The members of this community go there for inspiration, collaboration, and to discuss the future of ideas.
[xiii] Lawrence Lessig, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, (New York: The Penguin Press, 2008), 1.
[xiv] ibid., 28. R/W (read /write culture) is culture that not only consumes but also produces. This concept has been around since the invention of the gramophone. The idea being that we learn form reading and writing or in this case watching media and responding by rewriting it.
[xv] Kembrew McLeod, Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity, (New York: Double Day, 2005), 329. Fair use is a piece of legislation that, if granted, allows a person who dos not hold a copyright on a particular piece of writing, film, etc to use it with out the owners permission. The law is not well defined and very hard to argue. The people who are aloud this write most often are journalists. What about the rest of us?
[xvi] Lessig, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, 53.
[xvii] Graham Meikle, "Whacking Bush: Tactical Media as Play," in Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times, ed. Megan Boler.(USA: The MIT Press, 2008), 378.
[xviii] ibid. 375-375. Meikle defines tactical media as satirical, mobile, relevant, temporary, novel, and ephemeral.
[xix] ibid. 375-375.
[xx] "Detournement," in Wikipedia [database online]. [cited 2008]. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detournement.
[xxi] Meagan Boler ed., Digital Media and Democracy,Anonymous (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009), 391. The court jester or ‘wise fool’, is commonly the figure who speaks truth to power in the tradition of political satire. In times marked by these feelings of descent and the narrowing of press freedom and band with, political satire thrives.”
[xxii] ibid., 386, 398.
[xxiii] Noam Chomsky, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda, 2nded. (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2002), 16.
[xxiv] ibid., 14.
[xxv] Boler, Digital Media and Democracy, 397.
[xxvi] ibid., 385.
[xxvii] ibid., 389.
[xxviii] ibid., 389.
[xxix] "Lenny Bruce," in http://en.wikipedia.org [database online]. [cited 2009]. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenny_Bruce. “On October 4, 1961 Bruce was arrested for obscenity at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco; he had used the word cocksucker and riffed that "'to' is a preposition, 'come' is a verb" and that the sexual context of "come" is so common that it bears no weight, and that if someone hearing it becomes upset, he "probably can't come." Although the jury acquitted him, other law enforcement agencies began monitoring his appearances, resulting in frequent arrests under charges of obscenity...The specification this time was that the comedian had used the word "schmuck", an insulting Yiddish term.”
[xxx] "First Amendment to the United States Constitution," in Wikipedia [database online]. [cited 2009]. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution. First Amendment to the United States Constitution: “The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that expressly prohibits the United States Congress from making laws ‘respecting an establishment of religion’ or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, infringe the freedom of speech, infringe the freedom of the press, limit the right to peaceably assemble, or limit the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Although the First Amendment only explicitly applies to the Congress, the Supreme Court has interpreted it as applying to the executive and judicial branches. Additionally, in the 20th century, the Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies the limitations of the First Amendment to each state, including any local government within a state.”
[xxxi] Michiko Kakutani, "Is This The Most Trusted Man In America?" The New York Times, August 17, 2008, sec. Arts & Leisure, p. 1.
[xxxii] Meikle, Whacking Bush: Tactical Media as Play, 375.
[xxxiii] Lessig, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, 68.
[xxxiv] ibid., 68.
[xxxv] Brendan O'Neil, "Robin Hood: Why Does Robin Hood Keep Coming Back," BBC News, April 23, 2009, p. 1.
[xxxvi] Posner, The Little Book of Plagiarism, 57.
[xxxvii] The Associated Press, "Canada on U.S. copyright piracy watch list," CBC.ca, April 30, 2009.
[xxxviii] "France, the first country to implement the controversial “three-strikes-and-you’re-out”-legislation," in EPM [database online]. [cited 2009]. Available from http://www.epm-musiconline.com/component/content/article/65-france-the-first-country-to-implement-the-controversial-three-strikes-and-youre-out-legislation-.html.
[xxxix] ibid.
[xl] McLeod, Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity, 5.
[xli] "The Digital Millennium Copyright Act," in Wikipedia [database online]. [cited 2009]. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act). “The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as Digital Rights Management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet. Passed on October 12, 1998 by a unanimous vote in the U.S. Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998, the DMCA amended Title 17 of the United States Code to extend the reach of copyright, while limiting the liability of the providers of on-line services for copyright infringement by their users”.
[xlii] "Corporate Accountability Project," [cited 2009]. Available from http://www.corporations.org/.
[xliii] "Media Reform Information Center," [cited 2008]. Available from http://www.corporations.org/media/. Media Reform Information Center: “In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. At the time, Ben Bagdikian was called "alarmist" for pointing this out in his book, The Media Monopoly. In his 4th edition, published in 1992, he wrote "in the U.S., fewer than two dozen of these extraordinary creatures own and operate 90% of the mass media" -- controlling almost all of America's newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos, wire services and photo agencies. He predicted then that eventually this number would fall to about half a dozen companies. This was greeted with skepticism at the time. When the 6th edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 2000, the number had fallen to six. Since then, there have been more mergers and the scope has expanded to include new media like the Internet market."
[xliv] McLeod, Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity, 10.
[xlv] ibid., 276.
[xlvi] ibid., 328.
[xlvii] ibid., 277.
[xlviii] ibid., 11.
[xlix] Marc Prensky, "Make Those You Tube! More Sharing = Faster Learning," Educational Technology (2009): 1. “Our children today are being socialized in a way that is vastly different from their parents. The numbers are overwhelming: over 10,000 hours talking on digital cell phones; over 20,000 hours watching TV (a high percentage fast speed MTV), over 500,000 commercials seen-all before the kids leave college. And, maybe, at the very most, 5,000 hours of book reading. These are today’s “Digital Native” students.”
[l] McLeod, Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity, 279.
[li] ibid., 286-288.
[lii] "Web 2.0," in Wikipedia [database online]. [cited 2009]. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0. "Web 2.0" refers to the second generation of web development and web design that facilitates information sharing and collaboration on the World Wide Web. The advent of Web 2.0 led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and web applications. Examples include social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups and folksonomies.”
[liii] "Bit Torrent (protocol)," in Wikipedia [database online]. [cited 2009]. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_(protocol). “BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used for distributing large amounts of data. BitTorrent is one of the most common protocols for transferring large files, and by Ipoque estimates it accounted for approximately 27-55% of all Internet traffic depending on geographical location as of February 2009. BitTorrent protocol allows users to receive large amounts of data without putting the level of strain on their computers that would be needed for standard Internet hosting. A standard host's servers can easily be brought to a halt if extreme levels of simultaneous data flow are reached. The protocol works as an alternative data distribution method that makes even small computers with low bandwidth capable of participating in large data transfers.”
[liv] David Bollier, ""Pirates" Get Political: Sweden’s Pirate Party runs its own candidates and spawns an international movement." OnTheCommons.org, July 18 2009.
[lv] ibid.
[lvi] Creative Commons, Creative Commons.
[lvii] BBC, "Court jails Pirate Bay founders," BBC World News, April 17, 2009.
[lviii] In REMIX Lessig does an excellent job of discussing file sharing and free culture, its legitimacy, and its place in the hybrid economy.
[lix] Creative Commons, Creative Commons.
[lx] ibid.
[lxi] ibid.
[lxii] Bollier, "Pirates" Get Political: Sweden’s Pirate Party runs its own candidates and spawns an international movement.
[lxiii] "International Piratartiet," [cited 2009]. Available from http://www.piratpartiet.se/international/.
[lxiv] Matt Hartley, "From Pirate Bay, a torpedo to illegal file sharing: Swedish court imposes jail terms on founders of website in case expected to have lasting international ramifications," The Globe and Mail, July 18 2009, sec. Personal Tech.