In order to change the culture we must not criminalize the actions of remixing. If remixers want to be taken seriously, approach the law as it should be approached and show that remixing is not stealing, but expanding, creating, evolving, and enriching the current content they are dealing with. Even though this is, and should be, an amateur hobby, approach the law in a professional way in fighting for the right to express ourselves freely.

Also, like Janna, I’m interested by the idea of Rebecca Black being a millionaire, apparently. Where is this money coming from? And what is ARK getting out of it? Their business model is a mystery to me. They’re brilliant getting parents to pay for their kids to become “stars,” but what happens after that? If a kid’s video fails is that the end?

Anyway, this looks like it’ll be great. Hope your research is going well!

So on to the next point. The issue behind copyright laws and free downloading is always tricky for me because it brings up the question of what is the purpose of art? Should art be made to make a profit or should it be free to the public for general enjoyment? I did some research on this last fall and artists all have different opinions. You have people like Lily Allen protesting free downloading wanting to send everyone who hasn’t paid for her music to jail, while I think it was Pink and Jennifer Lopez who said that they’re flattered by so many people downloading their music because it means people are taking the time to listen to it. They say they want anyone to have access to their music, regardless of their economic situation. But then again, Pink and JLo aren’t really hurting for cash. Also with bands releasing free/pay what you can albums online (Radiohead, etc.) how can you expect consumers to be willing to pay for all their music? If one person is giving it away for free then we want everyone to.

For as long as people have been creating any kind of art, people have been copying and recreating–even before the internet. It’s just that now with all of the remixes being available to millions of people online, artists, or rather the lawyers of the labels, feel the need to defend themselves. If John Phillip Sousa’s people singing songs out on porches were around today and posted videos of themselves on YouTube, I bet they’d get sued too.

Sorry–that was not the most coherent comment, but hopefully everything makes sense

I mean, “real” musicians (signed to a label) steal other artists’ work all the time, but record labels hold their tongues? For example, Green Day’s album “American Idiot” plundered more or less wantonly many of Iggy Pop’s guitar riffs and repackaged/ sold them as a wholly new, original product. What about when a band plays a “cover” of another song in its own particular style? That sounds a lot like remixing to me.

Suffice to say, I don’t think anyone is trying to stifle creativity here, and not everything is bound to lose itself in recursive jokes/meanings (like reddit, tumblr, and /b/).

I also agree with the notion that everything’s more or less been done before so the only way to truly innovate is to look at what people have done in the past and reconfigure it in a way no other person might have thought to attempt.

I think Hannah’s comment is interesting in that it is great that everybody is so positive in these communities, but do people really want an honest critique of their outfits or do they just want positive reinforcement so they can feel flattered and good about themselves? It might be intriguing to see if you could get any insight from the users about this: whether when they post comments if they do it to be nice or actually give true opinions of others outfits. If everybody is positive all the time, doesn’t that defeat the original purpose of the websites? Can’t wait to see what you guys come up with!