Good Copy Bad Copy - Remixing Creativity

I remember watching Good Copy Bad Copy in my WEPO class my first semester here and how much I learned from it. When it comes to the creativity and making something your own work, the question that is constantly asked is: is this truly an original? Everyone has some sort of creativity about them that they would love to share with the rest of the world, but how do we make ourselves different without looking getting ideas from others who have inspired us from the past? Does doing this make the creation we had in mind not original? People have often admitted to being inspired others and their works, does that mean that we shouldn’t pursue the idea we had in mind? In the documentary, one perfect example of this is the DJ Girl Talk. His music essentially takes samples from other famous artists and he remixes them together to make a song. This generation is almost known for its reinvention of the art that we see on a daily basis. Whether it be an old song remixed with a modern day song as Girl Talk does, or by taking a moving image from a movie or show and writing a caption on it (also known as GIF). If we were to apply the copyright law to everything we try and create, there wouldn’t be many things created at all.

 

Another example is that of DJ Danger Mouse. His project, which was remixing The Beatle’s White Album and rapper Jay-Z’s The Black Album, was a huge hit in 2005. He called his album, ironically, The Grey Album, and once people started to get a hold of his tracks, it went viral. Besides the fact that the DJ created this himself, the actual music and lyrics technically were not his own, therefore leaving him to receive no money from the selling of his album at all. Having shared these songs through the Internet it was too late and it had been shared to countless amounts of people. As said previously, if one were to look at this from a lawyers perspective, they might agree and say this is infringement and not original. However to the DJ and the fans he obtained after this, they might say otherwise. He decided one day to make this a project of his. He sat down and thought of an idea to remix and mash-up two albums that are well known all over the world. Personally, this is creativity at its finest, and people like DJ Danger Mouse as well as Girl Talk are simply trying to let their creativity be known.

The Internet allows for people to send, receive and look up anything they want to at the click of a button. If its one thing people need to truly comprehend is that society is evolving into easier and faster things. Because of this, it is obviously much easier to obtain information than it was 150 years ago when people would go to the public library instead. As I stated before with the example of the DJ’s, their goal in mind is not to make a sham out of the artists that they are using, they are simply trying to share with the rest of the world their creativity. Although some artists do in fact find it offensive that others might be obtaining coverage and even money for their creations with songs that they themselves have created; they also must understand that they are trying to achieve the same thing they did before they became a celebrity.

Ultimately this ongoing debate with copyright might never be subject to change. We might always be under scrutiny about what we have or what we plan to create due to the fact that it might be “original” but one thing I do believe that must be understood is the fact that we, as creators, must never stop trying to change, and we must continue to try and show the world what we feel is important to share. People deserve to show their talents and creativity to the world, who are we to tell them that they can’t?