After watching “Everything is a Remix” by Kirby Ferguson, my whole outlook on the re-use of work has changed. No longer do I feel bad about taking another persons idea and twisting it making it my own, because admittedly it is something I do allot. I was glad to learn that copying had been the process of creativity and evolution since the beginning of time, but not just to simply copy, but to expand on and make that already known idea and make it better. I guess it is funny to bring this up, but even as I write this I am referring back to the video to add specific details and terms, in a sense I guess I’m copying this too, hopefully it is an improvement.

The sad part that Ferguson mentions is all the copyright laws and lawsuits from people who don’t want others copying their intellectual property. This unfortunately delays the influx of new creations and ideas to take place in society and improve as a people; the way we have done for centuries through technology and other forms. Not enough people realize the importance of copying work and remixing. Instead, people are more interested and greed and how they can make money which hinders the ability to make progress.

There is a major difference between copying and stealing, copying is the act of using someones idea or work as a platform to make something better, whereas stealing is just simply taking the idea/work itself and calling it your own. The idea is to improve, this was how all of today’s best things were created, through the improvement of older ideas, so go ahead and use someones idea there is not shame in it.

Usually it is fairly obvious when something is remixed from the original because they have many similarities if not identical. I think re-mixers share the same tastes of the original which is why something is reused or remixed.

Here is an example of the famous “NOO!” scream and and example of how it had been remixed and sampled in many of today’s films:

And here is the remixed/sampled video: