REMIX: To combine or edit existing materials to produce something new.

For this write-up assignment, I watched Everything is a Remix, Part 1: The Song Remains the Same by Kirby Ferguson. Remix originally began in music. Now, remix happens everywhere. It’s easy to do and anyone can do it. The video shows examples of Led Zeppelin using lyrics from songs earlier produced. They did not attribute the lyrics to the original artists. Remix happens a lot in the music industry, but credit is given to the original artist. Also, Led Zeppelin didn’t change their lyrics enough to even make them seem original. Remixing can be legal, if done properly. In fact, much of the entertainment industry is a form of remix. Now, Led Zeppelin is copied by many other artists. Karma?

I also watched the Disney copyright video, because I adore Disney! The Disney video was absolutely great. I loved how it used so much remix to explain fair use and copyright. The title was also very witty (A Fair(y) Use Tale). I think that it’s important to follow these rules, because people should get credit for their ideas. It’s cheating when you just steal from someone else. It is about money. If you take someone else’s ideas and make money off them, how is that fair? It also costs money to PUT a copyright on something.

What can be copyrighted? Books, plays, music, dance, movies, and pictures. This video taught me that you cannot copyright ideas, only the form an idea takes can be copyrighted. One has to expand the ideas to visuals in order to copyright. Copyright used to only last for a fix amount of time, only 14 years. Then it would fall into the public domain, which means it’s free for anyone to use. Copyright keeps getting longer, their is even a lifetime limitation. Some copyrights last forever. There are limitations on copyright use. You can borrow a small amount of the copyright. The nature, amount, and commercial impact of the work are factors of fair use. The creator of the movie believes it is under protection because the movie is using the clips from the Disney movies to explain copyright laws.

For my examples of remix, I looked at the following:

Star Wars Call Me Maybe

This video used lyrics from a very popular song, Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” and transformed them into Star Wars voices. It also used clips from the Star Wars movies depicting the character who was saying (singing) the given lyrics. I thought this video was pretty funny. It must have taken a lot of work too.

Buffy vs. Edward: Twilight Remixed

Though I was never particularly interested in the Buffy series and I am far from a Twilight fan, I chose to look at this video because I figured it could be kind of funny! Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a popular television show about a vampire that stopped airing about ten years back. Twilight, in turn, is a current popular book and movie series about vampires. Though Buffy is a bit dated, it is funny to think about her meeting Edward Cullen, one of the vampires in Twilight. The video took clips of Edward from the Twilight movies and combined them with clips of Buffy, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to create the a video of the two characters meeting. I thought the video was a very good example of how the two vampires would react if they did happen to meet. Even though I haven’t watched much of either, I found Edward very very creepy! It was funny how intense and serious he is, while Buddy is so matter-of-fact and sarcastic. What would Bella think???

30 Classic Music Albums Recreated With Lego

And finally, after realizing Obamaicon wouldn’t work on my computer, I chose to look at the remix example 30 Classic Music Albums Recreated With Lego, and was pleasantly surprised! I thought this was really cool. What a thoughtful, creative project to take on. I really liked the Beatles Abbey Road one. This site is a wonderful example of how one person’s ideas can spark another’s, creating multiple interesting results. I think if the artists of these albums saw their covers made out of legos, they would be pretty excited. This site is an example of remix, because the author used the art/photos on album covers and recreated them using legos. This was my favorite example of remix that I looked at.