Ridolfo and Rife

     In their article, "Rhetorical Velocity and Copyright", Ridolfo and Rife introduce a couple terms that I have not heard before, and a couple that I did not associate with the digital age before reading their text: rhetorical velocity, delivery, appropriation, and recomposition. This is the first time that I had encountered the term "rhetorical velocity" which, according to the article, means, "a strategic concept of delivery in which the rhetor theorizes the possibilities for the recomposition of a text (e.g., a media release) based on how s/he anticipates how the text might later be used," (Ridolfo/Rife 229). This term is increasingly becoming more important in today's digital age, and I believe that Ridolfo and Rife emphasize this in their article. The Internet and all of the digital programs that are associated and available through computers allow for multiple ways of remixing and recomposition; which I took to mean the use of a text (or image) in a different context than originally captured.

Three Moments of Realization

     Music and copyright laws. A subject, a dilemma, a controversy that continues to be argued day after day, especially in Western music culture. The concern of someone (or something, as in corporations) not being paid every dime they 'deserve' for use of all or partial songs is an issue that is constantly being debated. Large music production companies want stricter copyright laws. In "Good Copy, Bad Copy", some of the CEO's talk about the need to make to it harder and more strenuous for people to pirate their products. But why so much worry?

GOOD AND BAD

After watching the film Good Copy, Bad Copy, I realized there really are a lot of technicalities of copyrighting and pirating. It is not black or white and there are many gray areas that need to be determined and reevaluated in the eyes of the law.  This film shows both sides of each argument as well as an understanding for both sides of this issue. I think this film shines a great light on how important it is to discuss these issues further, due to all of the new technology that has been developed over the past couple years. It is hard for me to give a hard opinion for either side because I agree with both sides to a certain extent.

The beginning of the film brings up the term “Sampling”. I am familiar with this practice because I am very intrigued when it comes to the music business. I learned a lot about how illegal it actually is and how artists, sometimes, do not receive the credit that is deserved. While I agree that sampling should be limited and not taken advantage of, I also think that there should be a new law implemented with new terms and conditions regarding this process. I think that sampling should be aloud for much less than produces and record labels currently have it for now, which are millions of dollars for only a couple seconds of that song. I understand that they want to make money off of their original creation, but I do think that there should be some leniency, especially if there is credit being given in whatever is being created and they are being compensated for what is being used for a lesser price. I feel artists and producers should be honored that people want to sample their music or riffs or drum solos, to create something fresh and new but still want to keep the classics. I think sampling is an excellent way to be able to show younger generations where good music has originated. It was interesting to learn that Djs or people like Girl Talk, are at risk for their creativity even though they are just another medium getting artists even more heard than they already are. (3:26).

As for the topic of piracy, I do not agree with recording movies or TV shows and selling them for a cheaper price. They are not just “sampling” the product; these people are easily ripping the original creators off because they know people will sacrifice lessened quality for a much cheaper price. People worked very hard and spent a lot of money on sets, and actors and storylines, and they shouldn’t be taken advantage of for that. Movies and T.V series eventually get old and go on sale anyway so if someone really wants to view something and can’t afford it, they can either wait or watch it with someone who can afford to see it. I know this sounds harsh but companies like Pirate Bay and other torrent sites deserve a much harsher punishment because no one is being compensated for them selling these things or streaming them over the Internet. I understand that it is not illegal in other countries but if a movie is made and produced in America, then I believe that they should have jurisdiction if things like this is going on. (14:00).

The last part of the film that was interesting to me was the part about the Internet being a way of producing a mixture of cultures. I think this is so true and extremely relevant to our generation nowadays. Everything is being mixed together. Black, White, Spanish, every type of artists are being thrown together to form another sound or another collaboration that I find to be amazing. People are creative and I don’t think that this should be inhibited. I agree with moderation and appropriate compensation, but I do not think people should be punished for being creative and making a new art form. The world is changing at a fast pace and even faster now thanks to the Internet and technology that has been developed. No one should be liable because they happen to take advantage of these resources. (55:00).

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.

Good Cop(y), Bad Cop(y): Copyright in the Digital Age

By displaying Greg Gillis (Girl Talk) at the forefront of this film, I was allotted a context that went beyond the means of the film Good Copy Bad Copy. In less than five minutes into this video, I knew it was going to be about copyright in the music industry and how it is suffering, or moreover being challenged, in the evolving Digital Age.

Good Copy Bad Copy

Everyone downloads or has downloaded free music at some point in his/her life. Even rappers and hip hop producers do it in a way by sampling songs. I remember listening to J. Cole's newest album and in the credits he talks about how hard it is to get permission to sample music. He says he thinks it shouldn't be that difficult, that if he wants to sample something and he's willing to pay something for it, why shouldn't he be able to use it however he would like? Those artists put that music out and inspired people with it so why should people not be able to inspire others using what inspired them?

Redefining Creativity in the Digital Age

While Good Copy Bad Copy does provide differing perspectives on the issue of copyright laws, pulling interviews from both the enforcers and the “criminals”, there is clearly no question as to which side the creators are shining a positive light on. The negative repercussions of ‘copyrighted’ material have so intensively been ingrained in us that the portrayal of large public acceptance of remixed material may seem a bit out of the ordinary. Property rights, specifically intellectual property rights in this context, have acted as the poster-child for American culture and the ‘American Dream’. It is clear that such an idealistic concept, when put into practice, is subject to the same corruption and hypocrisy intrinsic to the bases of this dream.  

 Good Copy? Bad Copy? or Profit?

From Good Copy Bad Copy, I learned that the music industry is nowhere near what it used to be.  The standards in place today to protect artists and their music in my opinion seem to inhibit the concept of music as a whole. Music is now about money as opposed to the people. I also learned that there is nothing there to classify something as "good" copy or "bad" copy, because legally it will always be bad, but illegally it will always be good, which is the paradox in itself. In the film, it even says that consumers don’t mind paying the money to support the artists; they just download illegally to avoid paying the record labels and companies. Everyone downloads music illegally, it is inevitable- just as Dan Glickman states, but what bad things are the downloaders doing with the content? Distributing it to millions of people who either can’t afford it or just want to listen to it? Making it available for musicians to remix it in new lights and enable the music to touch someone in a different way? If the only person it’s hurting is the record label’s pocket, then why should it be that big of an issue?

The Good, the Bad, and the Copyright.

The film, Good Copy Bad Copy, shows the problems that musicians, producers, lawyers and many other people involved in the music and film industries, deal with copyright infringement. How they prevent it, stop it, and evolve it to grow with the ever changing technological advances. The film follows different people takes on copyright throughout the world. They interview, executives in hollywood, small producers in Brazil, the infamous GirlTalk, Nigerian film producers, and many others, to hear their opinion on how copyright has effected and changed the music and film industries. 

The Remix of Maggie Ryan

In Jim Ridolfo and Martine Courant Rife’s essay, “Rhetorical Velocity and Copyright: A Case Study on Strategies of Rhetorical Delivery,” many different terms come up that involve the action of taking someone’s work or using something that is someone else’s without the owner’s permission and also terms that discuss how to get other people’s attention when presenting a topic or issue of great importance to the rhetor. We learn about terms such as “Rhetorical Velocity,” “Delivery,” “Appropriation,” and “Recomposition.” In Maggie’s case, all of these terms are related in some way. Maggie’s case involves the WRC (Worker Rights Consortium), “A fair labor monitoring body that investigates and certifies college apparel as sweatshop free” (224). Sweatshop free means that the students don’t want their university’s (Michigan State University) apparel being made from sweatshop factories.

I Ain't Remixing Maggie's Image No More - Bringing It All Back Home to the Source of an Image, and the Integrity of Creative Freedom

Maggie was protesting for an anti-sweatshop campaign on the grounds of Michigan State University, and while doing so, was involved in a harmless snowball fight when a candid picture was taken of her. She claims to have been aware of the photographer when the picture was taken, but she did not not know WHY the picture was being taken, and for WHOM. The image was later used by Michigan State on their website to advertise the university. The image of Maggie was no longer in Maggie's control, because the image was taken by a photographer for the school. The new image was no longer "Maggie" and now was to represent a student of the university having fun in the snow, with there being no more attachment at all to the protest, which is why Maggie was having a snowball fight in the first place. Since the signification of this image has changed drastically so that the image represents the university at large, has it changed enough for the university to use the image, and is it ever appropriate to use the image with a new intent? A major question the reading poses is: Where is the line drawn for creative freedom in a remixed work?

One of the main things the reading tries to do is pinpoint who is really the owner of the image of Maggie, and "zooms out" of the scenario at all of the factors involved. The owner is the one who should be ultimately responsible for the permission of the image, but is the context is changing, does that mean there's also a new owner to an image? How much does Maggie control in an image of herself, if the context is changing to distort her and to represent a larger meaning other than herself? If Maggie is represented as a "female college student", and then her original image is general enough that it technically no longer has an owner?

Maggie is the image in the picture. The representation can replace "Maggie" with "college student", yet Maggie cannot be replaced in the image. If there had been no Maggie to be there at the snowball fight, there would have been no image to be remixed into being "college student", so this remixed work couldn't exist without Maggie. Then, does this mean that Maggie should be responsible for herself and the main agency? However, beginning to see the other factors involved, there would have been no image of Maggie without a photographer to take her picture. Does that mean the photographer is in control of his image since he took it? Zooming out even more, this is all taking place on the university ground, so the photographer could not have taken the picture if he had not been involved in the university to begin with, and Maggie would not have been on the university grounds if the protest was not taking place there. Since Maggie was involved in a protest that took place on campus, is it the university's image? Since the remixed work is still taking place on campus, this part is hardly remixed, so does that make it okay? The reading mentions that this took place in a public area, after all, so since there is technically no privacy in public,

These all should be considered factors, but the real question is then, who has the most power in an image of Maggie, and does this power change as the extent to which the image is remixed?

But what if Maggie wasn't a student at the university, and just a protest? Does that imply her image should elusively be represented as a protester if there is no affiliation to the university, besides it taking place on the university grounds? What if the photographer had not been affiliated with the university? Besides this obviously being creepy, does this at all change the university's rights to using an image that was taken on their grounds?

It is all a matter of who has what right to granting permission. The integrity of the image is complicated because of the signification of the image and the multiple owners.

Had the image of Maggie still represented protest, so that the signification had been altered to a smaller degree, had Maggie have had more control of her image, even in this context she is still no longer "Maggie", either? Or is this up for Maggie to decide?

One thing the reading mentions is the technicalities of a contract and how this may have affected Maggie's control of her image. But had this ultimately affected Maggie's awareness? I personally believe that whether or not she had agreed to photos being allowed to use her for the school in fine print, this does not account for her awareness for when the photo was taken. If the photographer had believed in integrity, he would have asked for permission so that he could use the photo. It could be argued that this would take away the candidness of the photo, but this also takes away Maggie's control of her own image. I think no matter the context of the image, no matter the technical complexity of ownership, Maggie is the central factor of this scenario because it is her image, and no remixes could exist without her. The signification should be allowed to change, but since permission was not granted initially, changing the signification impacts the importance of permission. Even if the representation deteriorates from Maggie's intent in context of the original photo, this initial permission still plays a big role. I think if she had allowed permission, her ownership is passed on, but since this was not granted, the ownership increasingly becomes complicated for the worse, but could have been easily avoided had the proper actions taken place.

Good Copy, Bad Copy

Good Copy, Bad Copy effectively highlights the ever-growing paradox that exists within today’s music industry. Copyright essentially exits to protect the unique creations of an artist from replication for profit or distribution. But what happens when the new way of making unique creations is to take other artists’ works and remix and remaster them? Is this new art form a violation of law? The dilemma suggests that the laws that once governed the music industry are in serious need of revamping in order to accommodate the creative freedoms of the present.

Post #1 Good Copy Bad Copy

Good Copy Bad Copy brings out something that is not only wrong in the music industry, but something that is wrong with every business, everywhere.

Reinterpretation: What's Right and What's Wrong

In "Rhetorical Velocity and Copyright: A Case Study On Strategies of Rhetorical Delivery", Jim Rodolfo and Martine Courant Rife discuss the case of Maggie Ryan, a student activist who had her work reappropriated by the university that she had attended at the time into an advertisement for the university's front page. Ryan was hurt by the usage and reinterpretation of her activism into advertising. But was the university committing an immoral action?

Good Copy or Bad Copy...That is the Question

After watching Good Copy Bad Copy I learned that it is extremely hard to be a music producer, especially hip-hop in today’s society given the multitude of technological advances. I have heard of copyright infringement in the music industry before and have read many articles centered on artists suing other artists, writers, producers, etc. over copyright issues. The film Good Copy Bad Copy immediately brings up the term sampling (3:25), which is basically when a hip hop producer takes a recorded piece of music and plays with it in the studio, most of the time altering it in some way and turning it into something else. Every time they do this they are at risk of being sued for copyright. I have heard many remixes of songs on the radio, online, and all over many technological mediums so I was genuinely shocked to learn how much of an issue this is. The example they provided owas Dr. Dre using only a 2 second guitar riff from the song “Get Off your Ass and Jam”, which was highly manipulated. The court decided that it was illegal to take this from the recording and it was a wakeup call for the industry. The film highly recommends that you license what you sample but this is often hard because people like Girl Talk sample many different songs in seconds of their work. It was interesting to learn that something so common and done by so many people can cause a lawsuit, and an expensive one at that 

Good or Bad its Being Copied

Copyright is an issue that takes major precedence in the over-saturated media age. It is no longer a question of  “who can distribute what and how” to “who can stop people from distributing everything and how”. With everything in the media trending toward instant access and unlimited consumption it is becoming more difficult for the music industry to regulate the “piracy” of music. The documentary Good Copy, Bad Copy, created by Andreas Johnsen, Ralf Christensen and Henrik Moltke, brings the reality of outdated copyright laws and remix culture to a head. At 2:38 the remix musician known as “Girl Talk” touches on this cultural phenomenon of media saturation and its effect on music culture. He says “Everyone is bombarded with media now that I think we’ve almost been forced to use it as an art form, its like anything you know? If people were passing out paint on the street for free I’m sure there would be a lot more painters out there right now” (Girl Talk). He goes on to talk about the way the current laws regarding music are set up is inhibiting to the creative flow of the individual.

Blog 6, Part 2 - Ridolfo and Rife's Dilemma

In “Rhetorical Velocity and Copyright” Ridolfo and Rife bring up some very relevant issues concerning copyright, ownership, appropriation, and what they refer to as rhetorical velocity. The article poses some important questions that we, as rhetoricians and young adults/students, should consider as we continue to create work and publish it in the digital domain.

50 Shades of Rhetorical Velocity (Part 2)

            Reading through Ridolfo and Rife's "Rhetorical Velocity," reminded me of the concept of "remixes" and what exactly happens once we remix a piece of literature, movie, art, etc. The main terms and concepts examined fall under rhetorical velocity, delivery, appropriation and recomposition. Ridolfo and Rife use the student Maggie Ryan's case to exemplify the surprising distance that possible strategies for delivery can travel. "SEJ and MEXA activists' primary strategic objective for the protest was to obtain broadcast coverage and to continue their strategy of maintaining a consistent presence in the local news"(224).The rhetorical velocity of the delivery of the footprints broadcast is what gained the attention of president Lou Anna K. Simon.

Blog #6 R&R (part 2)

Part#2

The terms that Ridolfo and Rife introduce are interconnected because they all (rhetorical velocity, delivery, appropriation, and recompostion) deal with Maggie's case but to go more in depth they are connected to the practice of rhetorical theory. These terms help us understand how rhetors can strategically compose for the recomposition of their own intellectual property. 

The term that I think functions more importantly in their article would be the term delivery. This term has changed just as time has moved forward. I say this because  delivery is important with any piece of rhetoric we come in contact with. The methods of delivery have changed and we now have digital delivery which deals more so with the internet, social media in this case Maggie's case. "Rhetorical practices in a digital age are different than traditionally conceived." (289) I totally agree with statement because if we have more of a variety of mediums then things become a bit tricky. Also delivery is important in this essay because the way Maggie's case is presented and "delivered" to the public is how much credibility and attention it gets . Now, the term rhetorical velocity would more so apply and coincide with Carolyn's term "genre" because it is a strategic concept of delivery according to R&R. (229) 

With genre I feel as if that is more or less the same thing because you have to strategize things in a group before just putting in a group and that is what the genre process is all about. R&R also state that rhetorical velocity theorizes the possibilities for the recomposition of  a text. For instance changing the form to digital or print and thinking about how this could affect the content and the way it is viewed. This deals with genre because if you use one genre and then try to switch it over to another type of genre it wouldn't work well or it would depending on the delivery of the medium and how well the audience perceived it. The term that surprised me the most was delivery. This term gives media the chance to be put into a different form so that the text can live longer. For instance, putting a piece of rhetoric on paper and the transferring it into some kind of YouTube video allowing the text to live longer. 

Blog #6 Good Copy Bad Copy (part 1)

Part# 1

After watching Good Copy  Bad Copy I learned that if you are a hip hop producer and you start mixing music turning original hits into remixes and creating something else then you would be at risk of copyright infringement. (3:43) I honestly thought that that would be  safe because it isn't in its original state anymore, it's actually a new piece. I clearly was wrong and now that I know that when I hear a remix of a song I will wonder if it is a copyright infringement. 

Along with learning that I learned about the term creativity and how that comes into play. There is a department called Creative Commons that is a different from copyright because it is a tool for artist to mark their creativity with the freedoms they intend it to carry. (22:32) The problem with copyright is that it inhibits creativity. People are known for taking is something and turning it into something else; that is what we call creativity. With all the laws and limits that there is it stops the creative process. Just imagine if it was legal to take something and turn it into something else how much creative pieces of music we would have. 

The last thing that I is learned from watching this clip was how the industry works, in this case a much smaller industry. From the clip, it was understood that the music producers make the music with the artist and then one that is done the give one CD to the street vendors and this where they make replicas of the same CD and sell them. (43:57) That was very interesting to me because I always wondered how so many local artist got CD'S out and selling them as well. This video was very helpful and made me have some insight as to what goes on in the music world as far as copyrighting, the industry and creativity.

Unintended Trajectory; Ridolfo & Rife's terminology

Rhetorical velocity is a concept that evolved out of a social and legal need to define and anticipate the trajectory of a text. The world we live in is becoming increasingly remediated as the media trends toward multimodal communication. Appropriation refers to the way a text is formed to fit into different social contexts and the way it is often reformed and re-contextualized. Recomposition is something of a result of appropriation; recomposition could be seen as a texts possible alternate trajectory. Original intent has increasingly little credence in terms of a texts spreadability and applicability. As Ridolfo and Rife state, it is impossible to anticipate the way a text will be interpreted and reimagined once it is created, “Rhetorical velocity is a strategic concept of delivery in which a rhetor theorizes the possibilities for the recomposition of a text (e.g., a media release) based on how s/he anticipates how the text might later be used” (Ridolfo & Rife 229). The moment a text is created it takes on a life of its own, maintaining some vague semblance of parenthood but scant concrete sense of ownership.

Relating Ridolfo and Rife’s Terms to Miller’s Definition of Genre

While none of the four main terms from Ridolfo and Rife’s “Rhetorical Velocity and Copyright” exactly mirror Carolyn Miller’s description of what we should consider “genre”, some of the terms seem to relate to Miller’s definition, in particular “delivery” and “rhetorical velocity”. The other two, “appropriation” and “recomposition”, are actions, but are only some what related to “genre”. They don’t seem to be parts of Miller’s definition of genre.

Miller says that genre is “to take seriously the rhetoric in which we are immersed and the situations in which we find ourselves” (155). For Miller, genre is related to Burke’s theories of classification on situation and response. Except, Miller focuses more closely on action and response. Genre, she says, needs to be organized around “situated actions” - that is it genre needs to encompass a group of similar, concrete actions or approaches to a subject/discourse. But, the second half to understanding a genre is looking into the knowledge that is created by that action. She says genre “seeks to explicate the knowledge that practice creates”. Genre is a two-fold method of classification: it observes both the delivery of discourse and the type of knowledge that is gained from that delivery.

So, returning to Ridolfo and Rife’s terms, “delivery” seems to fit one half of Miller’s definition. Ridolfo and Rife use delivery to describe the format or way in which something (an image, story, text) is presented. “Delivery” is the concrete action that is taken in presentation. It’s the first part of the equation of classifying a genre. In Maggie Ryan’s case, Michigan State University delivered the picture on a website, with context that implied students were simply having fun playing in snow outside. But Maggie’s intended delivery would have been that she was with a group of students engaging in social activism. Yet, that is only one part of “genre”, according to Miller.

“Rhetorical Velocity” isn’t so much a part of “genre”, but rather it is a method to thinking about potential genres. Ridolfo and Rife define rhetorical velocity as “a strategic concept of delivery in which a rhetor theorizes the possibilities for recomposition of a text based on how s/he anticipates how the text might later be used” (229). So, people think of different ways they can “deliver” an image or text or other thing and then contemplate how people might respond to it and how they can use that new delivery. This is essentially contemplating how a text can be presented in a new genre. Rhetorical Velocity is putting a subject in a new context and thinking about reactions, the two parts to Miller’s genre.

“Recomposition” and “appropriation” can be associated with genres, but they aren’t directly involved in the definition of genre. “Recomposition”, according to Ridolfo and Rife, is changing the delivery of a subject. It’s taking a subject out of one context and putting it into another context. The MSU workers “recomposed” Maggie Ryan’s image to serve their own purposes. As I understand it, “appropriation” is the act of claiming ownership of, or almost seizing, the right to use some subject, which in Maggie’s case is her image. Appropriation can then involves using that image in some different way than intended.

Ridolfo and Rife

   Ridolfo and Rife’s, “A Case Study on Strategies of Rhetorical Delivery” and their discussion of Maggie’s photograph being appropriated and recomposed really caught my attention, and made me consider other situations this has happened to. But to understand what Ridolfo and Rife are trying to convey in their article, you have to understand the keys terms they use to fully grasp what is going on, and how each of these key terms relate to Maggie’s case. The keys terms one must know are, rhetorical velocity, rhetorical delivery, appropriation, and recomposition. 

Public Secrets: Is the author a secret too?

Browsing through multi-media projects has become somewhat of a pasttime for me; the story of the tranquil, homey town called Pine Point, tragically removed from the United States map as a town, leaving citizens without a place to call "home-town," to the drastically different media project of Snow Fall, a New York Times article that utilizes images, maps, and design to convey the terrifying yet entrancing story of an avalanche at Tunnel Creek. These projects blur the boundaries between author and audience, creating an interactive space that forces us to put aside our traditional notions of the linear way we normally understand that we receive text.

The *iconic* "Arab in America"

Toufic El  Rassi's graphic novel, "Arab in America" provides a fictional account of his own childhood experiences in the United States.  And graphic it certainly proves to be, both through his images and in his descriptions and anecdotes.  Even the purpose of the novel functions in a graphic way, as he stereotypes several tropes and identities (usually those that exist in the "majority" of the United States population), in an attempt to provoke his intended audience.  His narrative illustrates a continuous journey and search for identity as he recounts events that may or may not have occurred in the order he writes them in.  These questionable factors make his audience question his reliability as a narrator, but even more importantly, elicit discussions from his readers regarding the presence (or lack thereof) of realism.  Whether or not realism exists within the novel is a critical point to consider, especially in the context of McCloud's theory of icons presented in "The Vocab of Comics." El Rassi and McCloud are pertinent figures to examine in determining these issues, particularly in garnering sufficient evidence in an author's ability to the transcend cultural norms that guide us.