RiP!: Remixer's Manifesto

Finally getting around to blogging about this one - this documentary was less neutral and really seemed more like one filmmaker's exploration of the issue via his interest in the artist Girl Talk (one of my favorite "mashup" artists). From the music he goes down the rabbit hole of intellectual property, regulation, and the cultural ramifications of a society of "strict" copyright enforcement.

The music, for one, was great in this film and it provided a bit of the history of copyright, but the thing I found most interesting about the documentary was the economic aspect of copyright that was presented by several people - particularly Mr. Lawrence Lessig. Lessig is noted for his work against restrictive copyright and trademark policies. You can check out his blog here. Lessig also appears in the Good Copy Bad Copy documentary I blogged about earlier.

Below is a screen shot of the Remixer's Manifesto that was established and referenced to in the documentary itself. The main point that I took from the documentary itself was that the current economic/business model for ownership of intellectual property is not working (in the age of the internet where "information" is so readily available) and so the goal isn't to have one or the other (I think too much of anything, even appropriation, isn't a good thing), but to have a situation where the "remixing" of culture can occur without necessarily "hurting" anyone - business or artist.