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| Lessig giving a TED talk on Remix Culture |
Lawrence "Larry" Lessig is a law professor at Harvard Law School. He formerly taught law at Stanford Law School and founded its Center for Internet and Society. Lessig is a founding member of Creative Commons, which seeks to expand the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and share.
Lessig has written 6 books so far. Most of his books deal with issues surrounding freedom of information sharing on the internet, how to understand and manage computer code, the purpose of copyright law, and the culture of remixing (also known as 'RW' or Read-Write culture). This final issue is covered in Lessig's aptly titled 2008 book, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, and is my main source for understanding Lessig's stance on media "piracy." It should be noted early on that Lessig is an outspoken liberal activist; on October 5th his new book came out, titled Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress -- and a Plan to Stop It, which has been credited as offering the manifesto for the Occupy Wall Street protesters. Knowing that, we can assume that Larry isn't too concerned with corporate profit margins and he is fiercely opposed to corporations lobbying or contributing to the campaigns of politicians so that they will push through the corporate agenda. This is an important viewpoint to note when delving into media law -- Lessig is fundamentally opposed to corporate greed, destruction, and control of government. Most if not all of the lobbying for tighter controls over copyrighted material is coming from the corporate content industry. Movie studios in the MPAA and Record labels in the RIAA are pushing for greater controls of media and harsher punishments for copyright infringement. While Lessig stands in opposition to the corporations, his ideology does not swing to the other side of the spectrum (he does not advocate Internet piracy); instead, he proposes a new, balanced approach to making sure artists get paid and new creators have plenty of material to work with.
John Philip Sousa, the famous marching band composer known as "The March King" took a trip to Washington, DC in 1906 to oppose the emergence of phonographs and the newly created recording industry. At his congressional hearing, Sousa stated:
"These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy...in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left. The vocal cord will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape."Sousa wasn't opposed to gramophones or "canned music" because he thought it would affect his livelihood (in fact, he was pretty loaded); he saw this new technology as an end to the RW culture as music appreciators would become more and more just music consumers and this would give rise to a RO (Read Only) culture. His pleadings were mostly ignored as members of congress were hesitant to impose any "frivolous" regulation on this new technology.
It turns out that Sousa was right. Around this time, RO culture began to take off. Soon after the advent of the phonograph, technology in American cinema gave rise to the studio era. The content industry exploded, and competition became fierce. Phonographs and records were manufactured in droves while film studios owned and controlled their own movie theaters. With time, audio recordings changed from records to 8-track tapes, audio cassettes, and CDs. Films went from the cinemas to television to VHS tapes to DVDs. This was great for the content industry, since these types of media (especially the analog versions) were so easy to control. The content industry was a booming business that provided jobs for millions. However, by the turn of the 21st century, the growing sophistication of the Internet and computer hardware made controlling media (especially the digital versions) much more difficult. RW culture began to make a comeback, ironically because of the "infernal machines" that Sousa so opposed.
In the book The Production of Culture: Media and the Urban Arts, Diana Crane investigates how media is produced in national cultural industries. For the purposes of this post, I would like to acknowledge three interesting points that Crane explores to help us understand the control wielded by this cultural industry and the motivations that inspire innovations.
- "The characteristics of the content and of the audiences are affected by corporate policies that in turn depend on levels of profit within." (pg 49) -- In other words, what the content industry does is guided much more by profit than anything else.
- "Cultural industries are generally dominated by a few firms that control a large proportion of the market for cultural products. Organizations belonging to such oligopolies are less likely to innovate and more likely to adapt superficial aspects of their products in response to changes in market conditions." (pg 50) -- This book was written in 1992, and the media conglomerates have only been expanding since then. These days, even fewer firms control even larger portions of the market. And Crane is right; these firms (run by corporate executives, not artists, mind you) are much more likely to make superficial changes than pursue any true innovations for their products.
- "In periods when these companies face increased competition due to loss of control over markets, they are forced to be innovative and to use less standardized content to sell products." (pg 50) -- This, to me, is the most interesting point. In 1992, film studios and record companies weren't really facing the loss of control over their markets that they are definitely experiencing today. It can be argued that the Internet and the resurgence of RW culture is forcing the culture industry to become more innovative. Some of their methods are effective (Netflix, Amazon video-on-demand, iTunes) and some of their methods are pitiful (3D Smurfs -- unoriginal with the added bonus that it gives me motion sickness). The point is, the oligopolies that have controlled our culture for nearly a century are beginning to lose their grip, which fuels innovation both within the cultural industry and in the ever-expanding ocean of user-generated content.
Lessig also talks about the value of RW culture, both in how it has manifested itself historically and how new technologies will enable more and more sophisticated means of expression. Lessig gives the example of writing; for hundreds, even thousands of years, writing was the only method by which everyone was able to contribute to cultural understanding. Lessig regards writing as democratized in this way. Writing was huge in RW culture because it has been understood that so long as a writer gives a citation for other works, the writer is free to quote any other writer for a separate work. Lessig makes the argument that quoting another writer in a book is fundamentally no different than "quoting" a film clip and adding it to a new film or "quoting" a song by including it in a YouTube video. Lessig says, "The principle is the same; only the sources are different." In most of the 20th century, making films and music was pretty much solely a professional pursuit. In other words, these forms of expression were not democratized like writing; not everyone could do it. With the advent of cheaper cameras, audio gear, and more capable technology, the means for anyone to become content creators (in film, music, and still with writing) has become widely available.
The Internet is an ecosystem full of constant feedback. RW culture rules supreme as users in exponential numbers consume, copy, paste, edit, comment on, or transform one bit of content into something new. Lessig gives the example of Sim Sadler, a filmmaker and YouTube user who re-cut a 2004 George W. Bush presidential debate, repeating the phrase "it's hard work" several times and then showing Bush say, "It's hard work which I really want to do, but I would hope I never have to -- nothing wrong with that." to make a commentary on Bush vacationing 42% of his first 8 months in office.
There are two big reasons that remix is good according to Lessig: community and education. Communities of remixers are alive and well on the Internet, with content creators showing off what they are capable of to everyone else. Lessig uses the example of Pokemon to point to the cultural norm in Japan of "Here's something, do something with it." This is very different from the much less creative American norm of "Here's something, buy it." Education is another (and possibly the key) advantage of remix culture. Lessig gives the example of several schools in inner cities that have had big problems with getting students to focus. By implementing a Media Literacy program and encouraging the students to make their own videos about the world around them, each of these schools have seen staggering improvements in attention, focus, and awareness of the students' culture. This is part of the "interest-based learning" method, and it has been wildly successful where it has been tried.
The most important point that I think Lessig makes in Remix is that everyone does it. We all remix, almost all the time. We talk, we write, we think, all based upon prior collective knowledge and some of our own experiences. We constantly use other people's words and visions to help us express our feelings. In a fundamental way, the new methods of remixing made possible by technology are just like the others.
Finally, Lessig offers us some important cultural lessons. When thinking about the issues surrounding RW culture, RO culture, and the Law, we should consider how each system enhances our society and how the law should reflect that.
RO culture: Makes it possible for us to have access (though often not for free) to the greatest collection of creative human artifacts; more culture is available more cheaply than ever before.
RW culture: Gives everyone the opportunity to create. In the past, writing was the main democratized form of amateur creativity -- now we have video, music, pictures, animation, etc.
Law: The law, as it stands now, hinders this ability to create. The youth will always remix, but for this remixing to be decriminalized and gain the support of important institutions, like schools, laws have to change.
At the end of the day, we need to understand that creativity is being stifled by the current copyright law system. Laws need to change and we need to be able to provide artists with appropriate compensation while allowing RW culture to thrive. The creativity that our technology has made possible for society is far too important to be stifled or criminalized.
I'll end this post with a video of Larry Lessig's TED Talk entitled How Creativity is Being Strangled by the Law
