In our ed tech class, we watched the documentary RiP! Remix Manifesto by Brett Gaylor.  It essentially talks about the concept of copyright in the music world. In it he follows Girl Talk aka, Greg Gillis who lives as a bio-medical engineer by day and a dj/mashup artist by night.  Despite its popularity, Gillis has found himself in hot water over the music he produces because  he takes samples of other peoples music, plays with it to create a sound he likes and mixes it with other music and sounds. Though he acknowledges using other peoples creations within the body of his work, to him, he is creating his own music.  Gillis has stated that he feels sampling is like an instrument. “There are no original music concepts anyways,” he said. “Even if it’s subconscious, and even if your music isn’t sampled, it’s still based on another idea. Sampling is an original idea, except with more blatant influence from other ideas. It’s really all about how you present your idea in its context” (The Tartan, 2006).

The major problem with his music is that he is using someone else’s songs/someone else’s property to produce his. This potentially entails copyright infringement. With the technology available today, it is so easy to share information. However, the moral dilemma surrounds it being shared legally.  Gillis would argue differently as stated above when he said, “There are no original music concepts anyways,” he said. “Even if it’s subconscious, and even if your music isn’t sampled, it’s still based on another idea.” (The Tartan, 2006) Gillis’ lawer has even argued that sampling off the internet is a form of “literacy for a new generation” (Rip!: A Remix Manifesto, 2008).

I understand that if he is careful to use only 10 seconds of allotted music before he violates copyright laws,  the artists do not have claim to any financial benefits. 10 seconds isn’t a lot of time and he does a lot of work himself remixing the sounds to create something “new.” Part of me doesn’t get why it is such a big deal as in my opinion he actually is creating something new. Yes, an acknowledgement of the use of other;s work would seem appropriate, but how far does the law of copyright extend and how far should it?  It’s not  totally  un similar to taking recipes and trying new spices and cooking temperatures to improve upon or even create a new recipe.  Is there copyright infringement here? It’s just an opinion, but unless someone has stolen /plagiarized the bulk of someone elses’ work and benefitted to the detriment of the original owner, it seems pretty stifling to me.

https://thetartan.org/2006/11/20/pillbox/girltalk

https://www.nfb.ca/film/rip_a_remix_manifesto/