Web 2.0 and the widespread use of new media has
forever changed the way people use the media and
also how the media industry works. Henry Jenkins
believes that we are no longer only consumers, but
now ‘prosumers’; a word that he uses to describe
audiences who create their own media products
whilst watching, listening and reading those made by
major institutions. In his book ‘Convergence Culture’,
Jenkins talks about his theory on ‘convergence
culture’, where consumers take products created by
corporate media and mix it with their own, he gives
the example of a story that circulated in 2001, a
university student created a Photoshop collage of
Bert from Sesame Street and Osama Bin Laden as
part of ‘Bert is Evil’ images that he posted on his
homepage. This was then found by a Bangladesh-
based publisher who printed it on thousands of anti-
American posters distributed across the Middle East.
The posters then appeared on CNN. Representatives from the Children’s television Workshop said that they were “outraged that our
characters would be used in this unfortunate and
distasteful manner… We are exploring all legal
options to stop this abuse and any similar abuses in
the future.” (Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide – 2006) But the problem then lies
in who to take legal action against, the student who
harmlessly remixed their photos for fun or the Bin
Laden supporters who distributed them? This new
media landscape of convergence culture has changed
how culture is used and shared, it has created a
world “where old and new media collide, where
grassroots and corporate media intersect, where the
power of the media producer and the power of the
media consumer interact in unpredictable ways.”
(Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide – 2006)
Youtube is possibly the most influential example of
user-generated content on the web. For prosumers
websites like YouTube are essential, with many
people owning a YouTube channel uploading,
commenting and rating videos every day has made
the site a huge success. It has become the most used
website on the net. But its success has caused many
problems for major institutions, as users have often
uploaded artist’s music and even whole movies
causing copyright laws to intervene, issuing take
down notices. However, while the use of ‘take down’
technology may make sense in the context of
outright copying, takedowns by companies such as
Universal Music Group and Viacom International Inc
have led to a rise of takedowns which some believe
threaten remix and read-write culture which web 2.0
makes so possible. Where users have created
original texts that may include songs or images
‘owned’ by big media conglomerates, these videos
are under threat as infringing on copyright law even
though they are not simply copies but rather original
remix texts seeking to tell stories and create
meanings in new and different ways. In some cases
accounts may be deleted due to constant copyright
infringement, “Accounts determined to be repeat
infringed may be subject to termination”.
(Youtube website, Terms and Conditions) YouTube itself is forced into issuing the
takedown notices by the companies that ‘own’ the
products. This is because copyright law protects the
distribution of copies of intellectual property so the
‘owner’ makes money from the distribution.
However as Lessig exaplains, this is against any
‘common sense’ as in many cases, user generated
content (UGC) has helped the career of artists whose
work they remix and the artists work reaches a wider
audience.
Anime Music Videos are a good example of this as
they help promote artists but also cause a lot of
problems for big media conglomerates. Anime Music
Videos are created by extracting clips from television
shows and re-editing them to music tracks. As far as
the AMV community is aware the first video created
was by Jim Kaposztas in 1982, who was inspired by
MTV music videos. This then spread, and many
anime conventions started to hold contests for the
AMV’s rather than just screening them. Now they are
a big hit on YouTube, Google Video and
Animemusicvideos.org. However, this cultural
practice is under significant pressure from record
industries to remove the videos, particularly from
YouTube due to its popularity compared to the other
two sites, as well as its “for-profit status”. The AMV
creators themselves do not gain profit from their
creations, but record labels have been requesting the
removal of downloadable videos. Music labels and corporations see AMVs in a negative light, where as
the actual music artists often contact the creators
with positive feedback. In November 2005 the
administrator of AnimeMusicVideos.org was
contacted by Wind-up Records who requested the
removal of all content featuring the work of Creeds,
Evanescence and Seether. Some YouTube Channels
that are AMV based have been terminated due to
their videos repeatedly infringing copyright laws.
This case study raises significant questions. If such
remix cultural practices are as Lessig suggests a new
form of folk culture filling the world with meaning
and alternative ideas, and if platforms like youtube
are creating possibilities for UGC to be shared and
encouraged then why isn’t this a good thing? But if
big media conglomerates are able to use their
financial power to ‘takedown’ such creativity and if
copyright law is being used to threaten such
production, are audiences really gaining power?”
“We are less and less a free culture and more and
more a permission culture” (Lessig: Free Culture, 2004)
It may be fair to say that the change from read only
to read-write culture has meant that audiences are
gaining power and a voice, but when you consider
the fact that many of these voices are being muted,
you have to question whether this new media era is
just false hope. Might there be a day where all news
is spread by ordinary people or were grassroots
media will be able to intertwine with corporate media
without getting in some sort of trouble for doing so?
Laurence Lessig believes that there are two types of
important creativity, both types make our culture and
shape our world, one is commercial and the other
type is free. Traditional broadcast media treated
audiences more as passive consumers being fed
content and information which is owned by big media
businesses. New Media and digital technologies have
given audiences back the chance to be active
creators and sharers. But he worries that copyright
laws that were set up to protect big businesses in the
context of tradional one way media no longer makes
sense in a two way shared media landscape and now,
these same laws restrict grassroots creativity. In his
TED video posted on YouTube ‘Larry Lessig: How
creativity is being strangled by the law’ Lessig talks
about John Philip Sousa (1854-1932), an American
composer who was very concerned about the
emerging new technologies and the impact on the
recording industry.
Sousa argued, “These talking machines are
going to ruin the artistic development of music
in this country.” Lessig
quoted this passage to argue that creating a
system of copyrights in which the control of
music is in the hands of record labels will
strangle creativity, Sousa was essentially correct
with his prediction of the change in the music
industry with it becoming a read only culture. This then links with my idea that audiences are not ‘free’ when you consider copyright laws because when adding copyright restrictions, prosumers are no longer able to create new products thus meaning that creativity is then strangled and restricted. People were able to sing songs and tell stories without the worry that they are infringing a copyright laws, but now that big media institutions have taken over.
The internet has given us the opportunity to
revive the read write culture that Sousa
romantised, by celebrating amateur culture-
produced for the love of what they creators are doing
and not for gaining money. You should be allowed to
‘remix’ or recreate work, by using other peoples
content in order to say things differently. This has
become the way this generation speaks. It is now our
literacy. We take footage of George Bush and Tony
Blair and make a music video by placing “My Endless
Love” by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross over it in order
to put a point across, and not to purposely break the
law. In the video “Bert & Ernie tries Gangsta-Rap” on
YouTube, the creator cleverly edited the song Ante
Up by M.O.P. to clips of Sesame Streets Bert and
Ernie. Now the fact that both the original pieces of
media on their own are targeted at different
audiences and have different ideologies, fusing them
together means that a whole new product is created.
Sesame Street being quite a fun, innocent and
entertaining children’s show and a hard-core rap
gangsta rap song like Ante Up merging together
poses questions on the innocence in youth and
how show like Sesame Street really preserves it.
This idea couldn’t have been gathered if the two
were not remixed, meaning that the convergence of
grassroot and mainstream media is essential to
giving audiences a critical and intellectual voice. In
his book ‘Remix’, Lessig says, “Sounds are being
used like paint on a palette. But all the paint has
been scratched off of other paintings.” This is a good
way of looking at the new art form that is “remixing”.
As Lessig suggests, it should be legal for people to
use others creations as long as they are not gaining
any money. YouTube themselves claim that you are
allowed in some cases to include “small excerpts
from copyrighted material in your video if what you
intend to use is substantial or is incidentally included,
or where the intended use you have for the
copyrighted material falls within a excerption or
limitation to copyright under the law in your
country.” But then if this is correct then it raises
questions on whether Stephanie Lenz’ “Let’s Go
Crazy #1” video did really infringe copyright laws
when the 29 second clip had Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy”
song playing fuzzily in the background. Stephanie
received a takedown notice from YouTube stating
that someone had flagged a video of her 13-month-
old son dancing as being infringing under the DMCA
(The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United
States Copyright law that criminalises the production
and distribution of pictures, text, video, audio or
graphics in ways that infringe copyright laws), she
then filed a counter notice saying that her video was
not infringing. Six weeks later YouTube reinstated
her video and she successfully sued Universal Music
Group for falsely signing the take down notice. For
people like Stephanie who believe that their videos is
fair use which have been falsely taken down
organizations like the Electronic Frontere Foundation
(EFF) have been created who have successfully been
able to get YouTube videos back up. These sorts of
organizations have helped give creative audiences
the power to fight back.
Even though there are restrictions to what you can
legally put on YouTube, users are becoming more
empowered because of the site, it is now a platform
that enables them to gain famed recognition for their
work. Examples of this are singers like Jessie J,
Justin Beiber and especially Bo Burnham. Bo
Burnham is a comedic singer-songwriter who creates
satirical songs with a politically incorrect slant. The
fact that he has gained fame even though he doesn’t
conform to the whole pop music culture means that
original artists are getting a chance. Proving that
audiences are not only passive but also very much
active. He have moved from a “sit back and be told”
culture to a participatory culture who make, do and
share.
As much as I would like to believe that new media
and web 2.0 is the start of a complete change in the
way information is shared and the collapse of the
Marxist model, much like Gauntlett I am hopeful
about its possibilities, but as copyright laws have
seized its development and growth it seems as
though “the consequence is that we are less and less
a free culture and more and more a permission
culture” (Lessig).
For my linked production I am planning to create a music video that much like “Bert & Ernie tries Gangsta-Rap”, in my production I will be taking the Heigh Ho music video from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and cutting and editing it to Red Man – Smash Something. Not only will a new music video be created but using Final Cut Express I will edit in new objects to the scenes for example dynamites, grenades, explosions and guns. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a animated Disney movie, Disney movies are known to represent a very sugar coated version of life with happy endings, love and good conquering evil, but the fact that they were supporters of an anti-Semitic society contradicts with the way they are portrayed. With the information given that Disney is not as innocent and moral as their audience it then leads me to wonder what underlying stories there are in their movies. With Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Dwarfs work as miners, but they could be interpreted differently through the use of remix. The Dwarfs could be seen as slave owners in Sierra Leone extracting Blood Diamonds, with this idea came the reason why weapons were added to the video. I am trying to show that with the use of remix, an ordinary piece of text can be changed so much that they no longer have the same ideologies. If this is possible then why is it infringing copyright laws to do so? User generated content sees the rise of creativity, where prosumers look at a piece of media and see the underlying messages hidden within and bring them out by a series of editing and creating. Without this originality is becoming harder to find, we see major institutional movies looking the same, songs sounding the same. We need an innovation. Creativity should not be crushed, but be allowed to flourish without constraints.
