MINE!

Copyright once started as a means to keep artists and engineers inventive and protective. It's roots go far past the industrial revolution all the way to the Writ of Anna, but it seems to have found its rebirth in the American music industry in the early 1990's. In an era in the midst of a capitalist swing that only got higher it is no wonder that Copyright has left its roots as a protective creative tool, and become an industrial capitalist safehold.

Art undoubtedly pulls from its surroundings. Anyone who has ever written anything has surely received the advice, "Write what you know." And in writing, it's alright to do that. As lo

ng as you cite the source. Sadly in any other medium citing the source can cost you thousands of dollars, if you do it legally or illegally. Disney, for example, remade stories like Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, the list is extensive. But if you were to remake one of those films, Disney would sue you for all you've got. And they'll keep suing you years from now. More like 95 years from now. When Walt Disney died the executives from Disney asked if they could extend the time on their Copyright. You can see how this can creatively stunt artists who want to use these ideas because they are such an ingrained part of our culture. These examples don't show the idea of Copyrighting in a good light. Think about this, when Copyright laws were first instituted in America they only lasted for 14 years.

So it sounds like the companies who hold the rights and the lawyers associated with this material have all of the power?

Wrong. We live in an enormously large, connected, and aware world. The problem for these companies is that we as individuals are now aware of others as individuals, not just groups of others. With the use of datavisualization, like this picture

"Britain from Above" we can see how other people come, go, and interact. They are more than just numbers. With tools like Social Bookmarking, we can see things that other people consider important enough to save. We can see their notes on the items; even how they choose to categorize them.

At this point we are using the electronic world to do the most base of animal skills. Communicate. It should not surprise anyone that we use it for EVERYTHING else. technology heats up our food for us, bombs countries, drives us from a to b. In a sense, it saves us from our inadequacies. Technology is also revolutionizing every art form.

As an actor you hear that the theatre is dead. A lot. But artists have found a way to save, a

"dying" art. Performances involving multimedia are increasingly popular. We are ready to be stimulated in this way, and theatre artists know that. The options with new technology are also endless, and the results are exciting. Manovich states the point concisely when he says, "Complete with setting and actors. In a historical loop, the computer has returned to its origins. No longer just and Analytical Engine, suitable only for crunching numbers, it has become Jacquard's loom - a media synthesizer and manipulator." Without this philosophy for technology we would never have such creations as the character of Gollum in

the Lord of the Ring series.

The same can also be said for music.

Remixes and mashups are now a dime a dozen, and with the electronic person to person connectivity network file sharing and illegal downloading is nearly uncontrollable despite corporate efforts. But make no mistake, there are very strong efforts put into preventing ALL of this.

The future is not completely bleak though. there are crusaders against the domineering copyright laws over media. Lawrence Lessig is a lawyer crusading for more lenient laws on the subject of copyright. He says, "This war too has an important objective. Copyright is, in my view at least, critically important to a healthy culture. Properly balancer, it is essential to inspiring certain forms of creativity. Without it, we would have a much poorer culture. With it, at least properly balanced, we create the incentives to produce great new works that otherwise would not be produced." Lessig is totally right. In Jonathan Lethem's article on plagiarism, he talks about the question of appropriation and if Nabokov stole von Lichberg's "Lolita" written 40 years earlier. This is certainly a pertinent questions but please watch this video, and consider the arguments presented in conjuncture to the material in this video. Did these 13 artists shamelessly steal from Pachelbel or is it just creative evolution through technology?