been. We don’t want a mimic of a piece of music, though; we want the actual piece of music presented through a new lens. Replication isn’t reproduction. The copy transcends the original. The original is nothing but a collection of previous cultural movements. All of culture is an appropriation game.
People are always talking about originality, but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us, and this goes on to the end. What can we call our own except energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance in my favor.
A great man quotes bravely and will not draw on his invention when his memory serves him with a word as good. What he quotes, he fills with his own voice and humor, and the whole cyclopedia of his table talk is presently believed to be his own.
Mixtapes are used—as they’ve traditionally been used—to advertise and promote a new record, but they’re also becoming a forum for illegal music: music that has uncleared samples and thus can’t be released through proper channels. Much more than a collection of songs, mixtapes have a host who introduces the programs and talks in between songs as if the listener were at a live show. A DJ selects the music and mixes many different songs together into new pieces. Many times the singers from the selected songs will customize the song and add new twists unique to that particular mixtape. The new vocals are often extremely self-reflexive, mentioning the mixtape itself and how it was made. In the majority of mixtapes I’ve heard, the original songs are re-presented in unique new ways, but record labels then bust their own promotional operatives. Which is similar, in a sense, to the situation regarding file sharing: the companies complaining about downloading (e.g., Sony) are the same companies making the machines that do the downloading. Instead of prosecuting people who have an interest in their product, these companies could try to figure out how to use this consumer interest to their advantage. Mass-media producers are wasting their time trying to hold the dam together, but it broke several years ago. The technology to duplicate, copy, and sample mass-produced media isn’t going away. What do we do with “outlaw” works of art? If I’m burning copies of
Titanic
and selling them as supposedlyreal copies of the movie, that seems illegal, but if I use elements of
Titanic
in a
Tarnation
-style film, that doesn’t seem wrong to me. I think it should be a question of intent. However, both cases are wrong in the eyes of the law.
Chris Moukarbel, who was sued by Paramount Pictures over a twelve-minute video based on a bootleg Oliver Stone film script about 9/11, had another video in a New York gallery exhibition that sought to marry politics and art. This one was created from film shot in the process of making the video that led to the lawsuit. Paramount filed suit in United States District Court in Washington, saying that Mr. Moukarbel’s original video,
World Trade Center 2006
, infringed on the copyright of the screenplay for Mr. Stone’s $60 million film
World Trade Center
. “I’m interested in memorial and the way Hollywood represents historical events,” Mr. Moukarbel said in an interview a month before the Paramount movie was released. “Through their access and budget, they’re able to affect a lot of people’s ideas about an event and also affect policy. I was deliberately using their script and preempting their release to make a statement about power.”
The progress of artistic growth in many media is being hindered, like those poor pine trees in alpine zones able to grow only a few weeks each year. For writers and artists who came of age amid mountains and mountains of cultural artifacts and debris: all of this is part of their lives, but much of it is off-limits for artistic expression because someone
People are always talking about originality, but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us, and this goes on to the end. What can we call our own except energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance in my favor.
A great man quotes bravely and will not draw on his invention when his memory serves him with a word as good. What he quotes, he fills with his own voice and humor, and the whole cyclopedia of his table talk is presently believed to be his own.
Mixtapes are used—as they’ve traditionally been used—to advertise and promote a new record, but they’re also becoming a forum for illegal music: music that has uncleared samples and thus can’t be released through proper channels. Much more than a collection of songs, mixtapes have a host who introduces the programs and talks in between songs as if the listener were at a live show. A DJ selects the music and mixes many different songs together into new pieces. Many times the singers from the selected songs will customize the song and add new twists unique to that particular mixtape. The new vocals are often extremely self-reflexive, mentioning the mixtape itself and how it was made. In the majority of mixtapes I’ve heard, the original songs are re-presented in unique new ways, but record labels then bust their own promotional operatives. Which is similar, in a sense, to the situation regarding file sharing: the companies complaining about downloading (e.g., Sony) are the same companies making the machines that do the downloading. Instead of prosecuting people who have an interest in their product, these companies could try to figure out how to use this consumer interest to their advantage. Mass-media producers are wasting their time trying to hold the dam together, but it broke several years ago. The technology to duplicate, copy, and sample mass-produced media isn’t going away. What do we do with “outlaw” works of art? If I’m burning copies of
Titanic
and selling them as supposedlyreal copies of the movie, that seems illegal, but if I use elements of
Titanic
in a
Tarnation
-style film, that doesn’t seem wrong to me. I think it should be a question of intent. However, both cases are wrong in the eyes of the law.
Chris Moukarbel, who was sued by Paramount Pictures over a twelve-minute video based on a bootleg Oliver Stone film script about 9/11, had another video in a New York gallery exhibition that sought to marry politics and art. This one was created from film shot in the process of making the video that led to the lawsuit. Paramount filed suit in United States District Court in Washington, saying that Mr. Moukarbel’s original video,
World Trade Center 2006
, infringed on the copyright of the screenplay for Mr. Stone’s $60 million film
World Trade Center
. “I’m interested in memorial and the way Hollywood represents historical events,” Mr. Moukarbel said in an interview a month before the Paramount movie was released. “Through their access and budget, they’re able to affect a lot of people’s ideas about an event and also affect policy. I was deliberately using their script and preempting their release to make a statement about power.”
The progress of artistic growth in many media is being hindered, like those poor pine trees in alpine zones able to grow only a few weeks each year. For writers and artists who came of age amid mountains and mountains of cultural artifacts and debris: all of this is part of their lives, but much of it is off-limits for artistic expression because someone
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