RIP A Remix Manifesto: Brett Gaylor Film Investigates Crazy Copyright Law in the Internet Age

May 14th, 2009 by Daniel Young | Filed under Media, Social media, Technology.

I went to the Popcorn Taxi screening of RIP: A Remix Manifesto last night, a film that explores issues relating to copyright law and creativity.It was awesome, very interesting and thought provoking.

rip-a-remix-manifesto1 This documentary style film was made by Brett Gaylor, it features Girl Talk - a mash-up artist (music) (I just downloaded his Feed The Animals album, which is also really good). Gregg Gillis produces music by sampling the music of others and is therefore in breach of copyright law.

The film provides a fairly balanced analysis of the argument including information about the origins of the copyright law and the concept of the public domain. The first iterations of copyright law were designed to find a balance between the rights of the creator and the public by protecting the rights of the creator for a limited period to encourage creativity and then opening the intellectual property up by allowing it to be re-used by everyone after a specific period of time, 7 years I think.

The industry has since been corporatised to the extent that music and other art forms are ‘owned’ i.e. they have owners distinct from the creator who all want to protect and leverage their ‘investment’ – even to the extent of pursuing very minor cases of ‘piracy’.

The film features a number of interesting characters including Lawrence Lessig, an Academic and political activisit.

RIP also documents the complicity of the Clinton administration in relation to the introduction of patent law, which leads to the corporate ownership of ideas.

I’d recommend you check it out – you can pay what you want for it here.