Good Copy, Bad Copy

Good Copy, Bad Copy

            After watching this video I was really sparked by music and how really music just builds off each other.  Music today is not original.  We take beats, ideas, lyrics, etc. from previous works because it is what we can relate to and we then make it relevant again.  At first when I was watching it and Girl talk was on it, which really made me understand exactly what the film was going to be about.  I watched for introduction to rhetoric a movie on hulu basically about the same concept of copyright laws and it was with girl talk as well.  This whole concept of death of the author, I think is very prevalent in music as well.  In todays society I feel that everything in life has been ventured and created that now today all we do is make things better by redoing them and creating something different from the original.   This concept is really something that has been done for years with intellectual property such as new technology, games, books, phones, really anything because it takes the ideas of something previous and re works them to make them better.  In Good Copy, Bad Copy you are introduced to Girl Talk and he talks about his experience with music and copyright laws and how he creates his music (2:11).  This part really interested me because he takes these original songs that we know love and adore and “mashes” them together to create something original in our eyes called a mash-up.  These “New” old songs are works of art because people such as girl talk are taking and created something different which I feel is art.  I do understand the concept of copyright laws and intellectual property and money but people do this everyday in all kinds of stuff and do not seek money.  A good example of this was in the movie when they talk about “The Grey Album” by Danger Mouse. (9:58)  I found it really interesting when he talks about money because he said he never made a single penny off the album and neither did Jay Z or The Beatles.  This sparked my interest because basically Danger Mouse did this album because he appreciates art.  He took something everyone liked and didn’t see the same and make it relevant and fun again which is art.  I think that you cannot judge someone on taking previous made things because music is a form of art and creatively which is what Danger Mouse does he takes something and creates something new that nobody has thought of before. 

            Another part of the film that stood out to me was at (29:07) when they are talking about fake DVD’s made and distributed in Nigeria.  The producer says something that is really interesting he says that the fake DVD’s are the same price as the original so in Nigeria it really doesn’t matter.  I feel that this is a good result to controlling money exchange for copyrighted information.  This basically gives the buyer the option to decide who they support which in return lets them decide how they want the money distributed. 

            Overall the movie was really good and really opened my eyes to the grey area in music and technology when it comes to copyright laws.  I feel that these forms of entertainment are art and you cannot put a price or decide on what is original or not when everything is based off previous information.