mediated history

Copyright law in the US is pretty medieval, but the original ideas leading to their creations should be represented somehow.  For people with the access to the technology, the act of reusing and remixing media has become commonplace, and even if it does fringe legality, the legacy of such remixed works have affected the mainstream consciousness in regards to remixes, covers and samples. Since we consume media so quickly, the year limit for a private work to become public needs to be addressed.  In my opinion, everything made up to the 70s should be in the public domain by now, considering how important these pieces of media are in understanding the context and history of cultures.  Copyright laws are almost forcing people to act illegally in order to find information and media that is expected of individuals to be common  knowledge.

For historians, I assume information under copyright talked about by historians would go against copyright law in some cases, which is a shame because western culture is increasingly influenced through mediums that would be under copyright law. I can only imagine the trials and  tribulations of an outside organization trying to add a critical peice of media owned by Disney into something.  The Fair Use policies help this somewhat, but when looking into specific examples you can really see how barbaric these policies are, and how nuanced they need to become.

Copyright Criminals is a funny video that really made me think about the ownership and intellectual property of music.  Sample based music has always been wrapped in controversy, but on the internet it just gets too hard to follow.  Samples are used so often, and remix artists come and go so frequently because the technology to get ideas to mp3 format is so easy these days.  Music on the internet, with special regards to rap music, is so incredibly self referential that it’s hard to put a finger on the exact copy that the artist is copying.

~ by aledere1 on September 24, 2012 .