America's Bulletproof Box

As Editing, Writing, and Media majors, it is safe to say we have all been exposed to the idea of remix culture (my mind goes back to our Writing and Editing in Print and Online course, when we watched Kirby Ferguson’s “Everything is a Remix” video), and also to copyright law. One thing that has only ever crossed my mind momentarily, however, is the fact that the United States is not the only country that deals with copyright law and infringement, and is definitely not the only place where remixes happen. The fundamentals of copyright law in the United States are, I think, permanently etched in my memory, but the rationale behind copyright law (or the lack thereof) in other countries, as posited by the film Good Copy Bad Copy, is fascinating.

Specifically, Nigerian film producer Charles Igwe explained that Nigeria’s ideas of remixing and copyright are different from those in the States because their film industry is concerned more with the sharing of meaningful stories than generating a profit. He says that they don’t like to glamorize sex and violence like Americans do. Instead, they focus on human values, like love for one another and respect for elders (time: 26:21). He even admits that the acting is terrible, but their culture seems to be more accepting of technically poor films with good messages than they are of technically excellent movies that are produced only for money.

This seems to be one of the biggest problems with copyright law in the States. As a culture, our obsession with money inhibits us from reaching our full potential creatively. In the film, at 30:05, it is argued that convicting a pirate does not help anyone to profit. In fact, it only means spending tax money on feeding and clothing the pirate during his or her incarceration. It is asserted that copyright exists not to prohibit the use of someone’s creative property, but to encourage the legal use of that property. In other words, copyright encourages fair use. Copyright law in the States, however, make it pretty difficult to argue fair use. Many artists would usually rather see their work protected, kept inside a locked bulletproof box, than to see it used in any way other than its original intention—that is to say, celebrated and remixed.

Some of the fair use guidelines include not using someone else’s work for your own profit, and not negatively affecting the value of another person’s work. Beginning at 8:30, Siva Vaidhyanathan of New York University explains the concept behind Danger Mouse’s “The Grey Album.” He created a remix using music from The Beatle’s “The White Album” and Jay-Z’s “The Black Album” and shared it for free. He didn’t profit from it, and, over three decades after the release of “The White Album,” it is safe to assume he did not affect the value of The Beatles’ music. If anyone should have been up in arms about this album, it should have been Jay-Z, but as the film says, most of the trouble came from The Beatle’s lawyers. (This makes me think that Jay-Z may have had a pretty good handle on the theory of rhetorical velocity, which I will talk about shortly.)

This, I think, is the fundamental difference between copyright in the United States and in Nigeria. Producers of music and film in Nigeria know that their work is going to be appropriated and remixed once it is made public, but is not necessarily going to be used to generate a profit. They seem to understand that, by wanting to appropriate and remix the work, people are celebrating it and lauding it as something worth sharing, something that will make a difference, something meaningful. Therefore, they put the theory of rhetorical velocity into practice, unlike many artists and producers in the States. Ridolfo and Rife explain rhetorical velocity as a “strategic concept of delivery in which a rhetor theorizes the possibilities for the recomposition of a text based on how s/he anticipates how the text might later be used” (229). Nigerian producers and artists understand that their work may be appropriated and remixed, and so they create their work with a mindset that enables them to think ahead to how their work might be used, and deliver it accordingly. Many (but not all, as Jay-Z seems to have proven in “The Grey Album” dilemma) of American artists do not seem to think ahead to how their art, their music, their film, their texts will be used, reused, and remixed years down the road. This could also explain why so many artists are pushing for longer copyright protection (after all, who could claim to be able to see further than 28 years in the future?). It seems that they would rather create their work for one platform and one specific usage, which plays contrary to other countries’ views of sharing, remixing, and copyright.

-Jessica Gonzalez