Week Four - Regulation and Ownership

Is originality a thing of the past?

Distinguishing a clear difference between whether a remixer is an innovator and a pirate has become increasingly challenging. The list of people who could come under the name of a “remixer” is long and ever changing. Remixing products such as music, movies, television shows, fashion, art and design has risen to popularity in the last decade, with the help of globalisation.

Martin, Moore and Salter (2010)  outline the tactics often employed by the music industry in an attempt to curb file-sharing, copying and remixing in ‘Sharing music files: tactics of a challenge to the industry’. These tactics relate mostly to music but can also be applied to other methods of remixing.

The industry claims copyright violation reduces sales of CDs, thereby harming artists, who receive fewer royalties. Lower sales also reduce the industry’s ability to support new artists. File–sharing, according to the industry, is unfair to recorded artists, because they have intellectual property rights in proprietary recordings. The artists and industry put work into producing the recordings, and it is unfair that others can obtain free access (Martin, Moore and Salter, 2010).

The terms mashup artist, DJ, pastiche and bricolage all refer to the combining on two or more separate products, most commonly used in reference to music, to make something “new”. In a sense, the songs or movies that have been produced through either mashup, pastiche or bricolage are original but the content that has been used is someone else’s work.

Image Source: Digital DJ Tips

Mashup artists and DJs have become more and more popular over the last decade, often making their names known all over the world by climbing the charts with successful combinations of songs that already existed.







Image Source: Forbes

The rise of globalisation has enabled goods and services to be shared all over the world in a matter of seconds, meaning that more people have access to more products and are now more than ever before, remixing music, movies, television shows, fashion, art, software and design.
 The music industry has used devaluation extensively by labelling file–sharers as thieves, pirates and criminals (Martin, Moore, and Salter, 2010).

To say that all remixers are thieves could be perceived as harsh, but the fact is that they are taking something that already exists and making it their own. These creations can be seen as innovative and original in terms of having never been put together before, but the content has been heard before.

References

Martin, B, Moore, C and Salter, C. 2010, ‘Sharing music files: tactics of a challenge to the industry’, First Monday, vol. 15, no. 12, retrieved 23 August 2013, http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2986/2680