blog #12

1) "Work successfully licensed in a commercial economy can also be freely available in a sharing economy." This reminds me of how Girl talk was using mostly everything illegally that was not licensed.  It wasn't licensed successfully in a commercial economy but he shares his music with everyone.


2) The movie mentions quoting like remixing.  Which is exactly how Lessig talks about remixing also.  Everyone uses quotes, and in class sometimes we get in trouble if we don't reference it.  But we are using those quotes freely, to broaden our knowledge of a certain subject and to help others understand our opinions better.  I remember when the guy who made the movie mentions that his whole movie is basically illegal.  But he made it anyway.  But it helps so much people understand copyright laws and how our laws now are so outdated.  It shouldn't be illegal if it helps others so much.


3)  Lessig talks about how our laws are very outdated and need to be updated.  The culture that we live in is booming with the younger generation remixing and using technology the way it is suppose to be used.  They are sharing everything and remixing anything given to them.  They are adapting at such a fast pace that our laws and rules now will only hinder their advancements.  Just like how girl talk can work his day job and then become a dj outside of his work, so can other people all over the world.  People enjoy his music, so why stop him.  He was mentioning how his music was starting to get so big that he might need to hold of on his next album.  Even his family is scared for him to get caught.  They don't really know everything that he does, but they know it isnt illegal.  Lessig wants us to see that our laws are holding people back from their potential in sharing and advancing communities with their knowledge.  Not only will we create more hybrid economies but we will be able to use every tool around us to the fullest, with less limitations.  Just like how Sousa was shocked when Currier told him that the law already went to far in saying we couldn't sing in public.  We really need to update our laws.

blog #11

     Commercial economy – an economy in which money or “price” is a central term of the ordinary, or normal, exchange. Like a local record store for example, or buying a dvd at walmart for a certain price.  For example, Lessig talks about how you don't argue about walmarts price for a juice thats 2$ and something cents.  You just pay for it because that is what walmart believes is the right price for that particular product.
      
      Sharing Economy – where access to culture is regulated not by price, but by a complex set of social relations.  These social relations are not simple. Insulted by the simplicity of price.  Josh's example of sharing his dvds for free, and everyone reading Lessigs book.  Basically when Lessig was on the plane and asked to rent a illegally downloaded dvd for 5 dollars, Josh got mad.  He said that he would let him watch it for free.  He doesn't collect movies to make money off of it.  So basically this is a great example of sharing economy.  Like me giving a friend a ride if he or she buys me lunch. 

      

      Where commercial is all about the term "price"  sharing is anything but "price."  I think Lessig mentioned both these economies so he can talk about how websites have taken sharing economy to a whole new level.  Not only are you sharing information with everyone with access to the internet, but you are learning also from other people.  Take wikipedia for example.  I know this example is used a lot but wikipedia is a great example of how a sharing economy works.  Lessig wanted us to understand both economies so we can better understand hybrid economies like netflix and youtube who use both but don't let one overpower the other to much to take away from the sharing economy.  For example youtube is free for everyone to share videos and comment, the more the better, but now ads are being used.  But they are sure to keep advertisement as minimal as possible so the experience from the users are not hindered.

Blog #10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44k8u_sZsVE

Jagged Edge - Lets get married remix


When Lessig talks about his friend Ben on page 52 who can write well he mentioned the reasons why.  He didn't do well in other classes but when it came to writing, he was able to clip quotes from the authors and build his arguments around it.  "He suceeded because the salience of the quotes, in contect, made a point that his words alone would not.  In this remix run dmcs flow, the new beat, and a few changes into the songs lyrics from the original remind me quotes, they string together to make a perfect remix.  They created what was originally a slow jam song to a up beat marriage song.  First time I herd a marriage song that made you want to dance.

page 56 - It is the expression of a freedom to take "the sons of the day or the old songs" and create with them.  Basically this remix used the original lets get married song which was slow beat.  and they added the old school RUN DMC in the song and having rap with a slow jam, and changing the beat made this remix even more popular then the original.

page 69 - "But the internet and digital technologies opened these media to the masses"  Just how sampling and  remixing has evolved and keeps evolving, having rappers have a rhyme or two in a slow jam or different genre song has been getting popular lately.  A lot of songs do this now and this remix is a great example of how successful these two mixings of genres in a song can become.  R&B with RAP is still growing.  A perfect example of a artist who does this alot is trey songz with rapper drake.

blog #9

What I see as Lessig's key argument in the introduction is that every artist at some point in time had to have had reflected on anothers work/art to create what they create now.  "No artist works in a vacuum."  So what the law is saying in the introduction with the mother using youtube for her baby dancing, The Girl Talk mash up, and even the John Lennon piece is that they don't really care in a sense.  In one example, the person they were trying to get permission from didn't even read the proposal, they just said NO.  And this is the problem.  The law needs to understand that this is whats going to happen in the future and that that they need to update their codes,laws, and rules to adapt to the ever growing change in copyright laws.  It should be like how SilviaO experiences music now.  People can sample her LEGALLY.  They even talk about how everyone does it and its illegal.  But if we move forward to getting all the crap out of the way and just getting the permission done right away, works of art like the John Lennon piece would not be slowed and kept away from the public.  We are shooting ourselves in the foot from keeping "remixing" a crime when in reality we have been doing it since the beginning for a long time.  Just like how he explains it with the Africans and they way they share their stories, how they always evolve and get better.  This is how everything we work with in art, music, and creativity should be, moving forward, evolving into something better.


RW (read/write) which is explained as reading their culture or by listening to representations of it.  As for RO (read/only) he explains it as less practiced and more simple with consumptions.  Basically he thought that the culture would be lost from the practice of "real musicians" as more and more people could create what Sousa spent his lifes work on so easily with "machines."  This matters to Lessigs argument in a sense that instead of creating more culture with new ways to be creative and remixing information to create, Sousa is saying we are loosing culture.  Sousa's extremism was based on the fact that we need to go back to RW and less RO or else we will loose our culture.  I guess hes trying to say we might forget our roots.  But how will we forget them, if this notion of remixing is basically uncovering the pass again to create something new.  He argues that people will not even have a vocal chord left.  Jokingly but in a way I get what hes saying.  Hes saying that we as a people will loose the disciplines that create music.  Like practicing with instruments and learning how to make music.  But we live in a new era.  Why stop it from evolving?  Lessig already explains way before Sousa argued about copyrights that its been RO even since the early 1900s.  People buying and selling new technology, he even explains how the piano being sold to the masses more and more was RO.  And then Currier straight up embarasses Sousa in their little conversation telling him that his memory of people singing in the streets, that is illegal.  He showed Sousa that the law has gone far enough with this and shouldnt go any further.  

Blog #8

Rhythmic cinema - Woodrow Wilson "Like writing history with lightening" what woodrow was refering to was the recruitment video he saw for the KKKlan and how dangerous/shocking/ and elightening it was.  Miller makes a link in where Griffith, the film maker of the kkk recruitment video and many others were making their own creative way in the narrative aspect of their time.  Just like how he is as a fj in the hip hop community of our time.

Rhythmic space - "from math to code to culture, contemporary art has shifted as well"  he basically compares this to Linux on how we give everyone the source code to create what they want and mix it themselves. our world is so infused digitality that different cultures and styles, bits and codes, converge all together, it all flows

Errata erratum - "The click of a mouse, the roll of a pair of dice, they both have a kind of intentionality  behind them"  he mentions that djing is like this, directly rational and also slightly random.  Which makes sense, you never know what your going to get when your digging in the crates =)

The future is here - "All were kind of like fonts, something used for a moment to highlight a certain mode of expression, and ofcourse, utterly pliable."  the future is always changing and what you did for something earlier, you find a different and better way to do somthing for another task later.  the future is happening rapidly and is already here

the prostitute - "Always try to create new worlds, new scenarios, at almost every moment of thought"  we are no longer bound by one fate, one destiny, one outcome, we have total freedom and the more we create different worlds/ scenarios, you can never play the same way for the same crowd. thats how why we remix, thats why we collaborate. thats why we are moving forward


I chose the song "SWV love will be right here" and it sampled from michael jackson - human nature.  I love this song, and i love human nature, so this song "love will be right here" with a tyt beat. is perfect.  i can listen to this anytime, even at a party.  I new that it was a sample cuz me and my friends would always try to see who would get the sample and the song from playing only 5 seconds of a track when we were young.  Back in the day when napster was a baby.  Just like miller says you can never play the same way for the same crowd.  Human nature had a whole different vibe to it, michael jackson had a different "message" to put out.  but with the same beat, swv got a different message out about love and it got people like me to love it.  And it might of even got people who loved human nature to love this song as well, who knows, but i can see how the sampling aspect of it created something new from the old. it really is where we should focus on as a society and community, the more we share, create, the better

blog #7

The Debourgoing piece was a really interesting read.  I never really gotten to hear anything from LA or even cali for that matter besides the mainstream songs.  One of the arguements that really got me thinking was that they talked about how New york and ATL and other east coast rap cities are still sounding the same.  The havnt moved on passed their ancestors while LA/west coast are.  There sound is much more different then that old school beat/basic drum that you use to hear.  The rappers rap differently from slow/fast/ putting their own flare to it.  And twitter and the web has really helped local artist keep doing what they want to do.  You dont have to get signed to keep doing what you love as these rappers talk about.  Also one of the rappers gave a great example El Prez, he mentioned that he got a beat that sounded like another "9th wonder" beat but didnt want that. he wanted something different. Which kind of hurt me cause I love 9th wonder haha.  But after listening to the other beat, it really did meld together well with his style of rap, and it sounded great.

 What im trying to say is that rappers are moving forward with a great future ahead of them.  The tools they can use, the way they can collaborate, spread out to different markets has really expanded their talents.  They are being more inovative and creative as technology advances.  As the rappers said, they are moving on from their rap ancestors and growing into something new.  Like how Doc Adams talked about remixing and sampling, we all do it, and we can create something better out of it.

More on sampling and remixolgy.  It really compares to what we have talked about in class and also what we have read about.  Access to information is vital in our world, and sharing is just as important.  The more you know, the more tools you have, the better equiped you are to take on the task at hand.  Just like how wikipedia uses this to the fullest, so do these rappers for example making one of their rap videos as cheap as possible with the resources they had to work with.  They posted it up online and now others can see it.  They even got the idea from another source online so that is how they got the idea. So the creative inovative way that rappers are moving forward to get their music out and get known, is really no different then how a journalist wants to branch out and write a piece on blogger that they couldnt do at work.

The Miller book was a pretty hard read haha.  I feel like hes the smartest dj in the world. His choice of words and metaphors are out there.  But what I really got out of the reading was that your environment you put yourself in is just as important as your ideas you have.  We live in a technology advanced day in age where if you want to do something truly, you really have to put yourself out there.  You have to be open to listen to different music if your a dj.  You have to use the web as a means to branch out and even expose your work also. Sharing is key because you are doing the same thing when you take ideas from other djs.  And the environment, wither its living in new york, or going on blogs about different sampling techniques.  Its all changing, and you need to change with it.

What I can put in comparison with the article, miller, and the class is that taking something old, and adding something to that idea or just doing it in a different way is perfectly acceptable.  And it should be, this is how our world has worked for so long.  If people wernt so greedy for money, sampling would have never had to go through those stupid cases about taking something that wasnt theirs.  We live in a world where folksonomy is important for moving forward.  Even if its for djing, or writing a article on how you feel about the current day politics, your not only helping everyone around you, but yourself as well.

Blog #6

The key points that Jenkins mentions were about convergence, black box, and participatory culture. I think its interesting how Jenkins talks about how players are becoming participators and participators are becoming players now.  There is no one sole role for each. Basically thats participatory culture.  Each of us can have our own say, opinion, way we view things and help each other.  In media today there is no black box now, we are moving towards convergence. Uniformity if you will with different characters, kind of like how Weingberger talked about the miscellaneous. For example you can be a writer, a publisher, a spectator, and more on the web.  The internet is not a black box or a delivery technology.  It is the understanding that all media is always changing, its right in front of us on the internet.  The way marketing, communication, and other technologies is changing, he talks about how we have to keep up.  And for the businesses who don't want to try and stay in the game, they will be left in the dust.  This new folksonomy is the future. Whether or not we are ready for the change is clear. We are not, but it will take some time and he talks about how we have the choices to sort through these many uncertainties.

Splashy pants story was crazy haha, and I always wear old spice, even before the commercials =)