Alright, so I have decided to change my mind set for this blog. As opposed to focusing solely on music and everything oriented around SXSW, I will put forward to many things I find interesting and wish to share my thoughts and other stuff of interest. I mean seriously who doesn’t like to read?! So to start off with, a couple of documentaries that are kind of closely related to one another. At least in my mind. They all deal with music in one way or another. That’s the connection.

Krautrock

In a time where classical music and Schlager music reigned, some felt the music of their time did not correctly demonstrate the state of the country. Spawning a genre, that abstracted itself from everything, since the musicians wanted their own sound. Wanting to new make music while not replicating the explosions of genres from the states and the Britland. Then came the synthesizer… But enough discussing of the actual documentary. Many, many interviews with many of the Krautrock Pioneers. Can, Neu!, Tangerine Dream, Faust, hell, even Iggy Pop! It’s nuts.

That being said, if you want to check out any of the bands from the Krautrock genre, German Oak, would definitely be up there. Despite the fact only 11 of the original 213 pressings were actually sold during it’s time. Recently, it was re-issued, if you can, grab a copy. I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

Before the Music Dies

I came across this in my first year lecture at University of Toronto, (Roll Over, Beethoven: Music, Media and the Marketplace – Seriously take it if you have the chance to). It may be a bit dated now, but nonetheless brilliant documentary.  But to be honest I have not watched this documentary, so the details are a bit fuzzy. It does go into Clear Channel, and that I find to be the most interesting segment, by far. Seriously, a company that owns over 900 radio stations and has a net income of nearly one billion dollars. Let me say that again, Net Income of One Billion Dollars. And people wonder why the radio often sucks. If I recall it also goes into autotuning as well as songwriters versus singers.

GOOD COPY BAD COPY

Now this is a documentary, that I just rewatched. Why you ask? because I enjoy the topics it approaches. And with the band of Canadians artists that are suing some of the major labels for not paying them royalties. No small amount either, a reported six billion dollars. But seriously, since this documentary was released a couple years ago, the main thing they talk about with Pirate Bay was the raid. Other things approached in this documentary, is the Gorbuska Market in Russia, musician Girl Talk throws his two cents in, hell it even talks about the largest film produced country in the world. No not India, Nigeria. That’s right. You may not know it but there exists a Nollywood, in a country without copyright laws. Nuts, eh? Describes what Creative Commons is for those unaware that there exists something other then just straight out Copyright law. But, the best thing the documentary touches on? Danger Mouse’s infamous The Grey Album. A mash-up of The Beatles’ White Album, and Jay-Z’s Black Album. An album you should definitely check out. But hey, cheers for now.

Hej guys jeg har kigget på nogle ting og forsøgt at arbejde lidt videre med det jeg fandt, men det behøver selvfølgelig ikke lige være det her vi vælger. Det mest for at få gang i nogle tanker og begynde at arbejde med de skal lave. Glæder mig til at hører hvad i har fundet på! hygge Astrid Hvad jeg har kigget på

www.goodcopybadcopy.net

 Free culture (bogen) http://www.free-culture.cc/freeculture.pdf (3/11/2009)

 Umiddelbare spørgsmål der popper op i mit hoved når jeg går igennem de to ting:

Skal copyright ændres så den ikke begrænser den kunstneriske frihed og uddannelse?

Kan man finde et kompromis mellem de to parter? Hvad var copyrightens oprindelige formål?

 Ideen bag er copyright i konflikt med demokratiske principper? (rig, fattig, personlig frihed)

 hvad er argumenter for delvis fri copyright?

 Skal man bare ændre copyrighten i forhold til gammelt materiale der ikke ”sælges” mere?

 Kan der findes en billigere hvorved man kan finaciere copyrighten?(All you can eat modellen, Den franske model)

Er det et spørgsmål om tilgænglighed? Er musikinddustriens dårlige image skyld i misbruget? All you can eat modellen? Den franske model?

Målgruppe/metode

 Jeg tænker at vi måske kun skulle fokuserer på vores egne medstuderende som målgrupppe. Det er ikke noget jeg mener bare fordi de er forholdsvis let tilgængelige som målgruppe. Det jeg tænker er at hvis man kigger på vores uddannelse, så er det en kreativ digital uddannelse, og dermed tænker jeg så at det ikke er helt utænkeligt at de fleste af os efter endt uddannelse kunne ende ude i job der både har med de digitale teknologier(fildeling, blog, websites osv.) og kreative produktioner (musik, video, remiks, design osv.) at gøre. Altså kommer mange dmd’ere nok til at arbejde ”ved fronten” i forhold til den konflikt der foregår omkring copyrighten.

Den anden ting er at inde for dmd’ere finde man nok mange unge som netop både har interesse for kreative produktioner og nyskabelsen inden for de forskellige genre, men også i høj grad det tekniske kunden der skal til for at anvende de mange nye muligheder har bragt, det være sig rimisks, fildeling eller noget tredje. Altså tænker jeg at dmd studerende på den måde er en relevant gruppe at beskæftige sig med og derved også snævre det ind. Så det jeg tænker er at det man kunne gøre for at undersøge dmd målgruppen var at lave et survey og få så mange som muligt til at besvarer det. Problemformuleringstanker Det som umiddelbart slår mig som et godt sted at bide fat i er det med hvordan copyrighten kunne ændres til et muligt kompromis mellem parterne (copyright indehavere/kunstnere og forbrugerne/dmdstuderende). Her vælger jeg at specificere indehaveren som kunstneren for, igen, at snævre problemet lidt ind. De virkelig store copyright indehavere som f.eks. disney og warner brothers er meget fastlåste i deres holdninger om copyright fordi at de har så mange penge i klemme og fordi firmaer af den størrelse primært har profiten som fokus. Hvorimod man for de fleste enkeltstående kunstneres vedkommende er tale om primært to motivationer A) At dele sin kunst med et publikum B) ”earning an honest days living” på det de brænder for.

Umiddelbart har jeg disse udkast til fordan en problemformulering lunne lyde:

 Hvad kunne få unge dmd studerende til at ændre adfærd i forhold til copyrighted material?

Hvordan kunne man ændre copyright loven så dmdstuderende blev mere villige til at betale for copyrigted materiale?

problemstillinger/dispotition

Her kommer der et par problemstillinger jeg tænkte at vi kunne have med og lidt dispotition

 Indledning

 Metode (skal eventuelt flyttes til efter)

Hvori består konflikten om copyright? (argumenter for og imod)

Hvilke mulige løsninger findes der?

Hvilken løsning synes de DMD studerende er bedst? (indragelse af survey)

Konklusion!

I rökrutan kan man träffa på nya bekantskaper. Här ser vi Arvid och vår nyfunna vän Niclas från Falkenberg som jobbar med den interaktiva biten här på WK. Niclas har skolats på Hyper Island i Stockholm.

Det här ser vi när vi tittar ut genom vårt fönster. En av alla miljarder kanaler här i stan.

Den här burriton innehöll väldigt mycket kolesterol tror jag. Biff, ost, pommes, ost, gräddfil och ost. Ganska äcklig var den också.

Det verkar vara en väldans massa svenskar här på Wieden + Kennedy i Amserdam. Det är nästan som hemma fast annorlunda. Kontoret är väldigt stort och det verkar lika svårt att hitta på kontoret som det är att hitta i den här stan. När vi skulle gå hit i morse sade Fredrik att han visste vägen. Efter fem minuter ifrågasatte jag det och det visade sig att vi gick åt helt fel håll. Jag undrar om inte jag får ta på mig att vara den som hittar i stan. Fortsättning följer.

Dopo il successo del Pirate Party alle elezioni europee è doveroso ripescare un documentario danese realizzato per il Danish National Broadcasting Television network.

Il documentario in questione è Good Copy Bad Copy uno dei film più riusciti e interessanti dedicati alle tematiche del copyright e ai cambiamenti culturali, tecnologici ed economici al centro delle dinamiche di remix e delle pratiche di file sharing.

Il documentario, realizzato da Andreas Johnsen, Ralf Christensen, e Henrik Moltke, ospita gli interventi di attivisti, rappresentanti delle industrie culturali e artisti tra i quali Girl Talk e Danger Mouse (autore di uno dei mashup musicali più noti) Lawrence Lessing, Dan Glickman CEO dell’MPAA e Tiamo e Anakata di The Pirate Bay.

Uno degli aspetti più stimolanti di GCBC è la proposta di modelli di business alternativi a quelli copyright-oriented.

Il fenomeno del Techno Brega (di cui si è già parlato qui), ad esempio, dimostra come possa esistere un mercato musicale basato su un modello in cui l’idea di copyright sostanzialmente non esiste.

Invece, il caso di Nollywood (l’industria cinematografica Nigeriana), che ha adottato sistemi di produzione estremamente veloci grazie alla completa digitalizzazione delle fasi di lavorazione e all’adozione del direct-to-video, ha permesso di superare le tradizionali finestre distributive favorendo un business model in grado di proporre un’alternativa efficace alle annose frizioni tra la normativa sul copyright e le nuove possibilità offerte dalle tecnologie digitali.

Good Copy Bad Copy è apparso inizialmente su The Pirate Bay nel 2007 ed è stato successivamente distribuito con licenza creative commons. E’ possibile vederlo su Blip.tv e GoogleVideo o ottenere il torrent per il download sul sito dedicato.

Ecco la versione integrale. Buona visione.

Se vi è piaciuto potete fare una donazione in denaro dimostrando che il file sharing può essere economicamente interessante.

STREAM UND DOWNLOAD HIER

In der aktuellen Debatte über das Copyright, Illegale Downloads und den oft besungenen Untergang der Muskindustrie kommt dieser exellente Dokumentarfilm daher und bietet so-mir-nix-dir-nix einen umfassenden Überblick über die aktuelle Lage von Copyright und Kultur. Interviewed werden eine ganze Reihe höchst relevanter und interressanter Personen von samplenden Künstlern über Powerplayern aus der Musik – und Filmindustrie bis zu Anwälten welche die Interressen letzterer vertreten und Professoren und Akademikern, die Konzepte für die Zukunft erforschen und entwickeln.

Der Film beginnt mit der Problematik des Samples in der Popmusik von heute am Beispiel von Girl Talk und Danger Mouse. Danach macht er einen Schwenk rüber zum Thema illegale Downloads und Bootlegs mit den Machern von Pirate Bay und Interviews im Bootleg-Markt von Moskau.

Nachdem nun die Spannungen zwischen Industrie, Künstler und Konsument auf den westlichen Märkten beleuchtet wurden, beginnt der für mich noch viel spannendere Teil des Films. Als Beispiel für die Filmindustrie wird die Situation in Nigeria und für die Musikindustrie der Markt in Nord Brasilien beleuchtet.

Was an diesen Ländern so interessant ist, ist die Tatsache, das beide Länder erstens sehr arm und zweitens die “Märkte” sehr jung sind. Hier konnten sich neue Modelle und Strukturen entwickeln, da sich noch keine konservativen Krusten bilden konnten. Der Bootleg – und Schwarzmarkt ist in diesen Ländern eine allgegenwärtige Realität, die von Künstlern und Händlern nicht nur verstanden, sondern auch aktiv genutzt wird. Ausserdem gibt und gab es dort keine “alten” Gesetze, die Entwicklungen hätten bremsen oder unmöglich machen können. Ein weiterer Punkt ist, dass die Armut von Anfang an Homeproduktion und generell billige Produktionsprozesse mit sich brachte. Daher haben die Menschen dort eine weit fortschrittlichere Umgehensweise mit dem Internet und dem digitalen Zeitalter, als die hiesige träge und behäbige Tonträgerindustrie.

Mir persönlich gefällt sehr gut, wie die Situation um die Pirate-Bay-Affäre beleuchtet wird und das man den Film auch exklusiv über Pirate Bay herunter laden kann. Runde Sache das…

Hackers, os piratas de computador: quando eles não estão andando de patins “in-line”, eles estão infringindo copyrights.

Os piratas de computador, eles estão entre nós. Um bando de pivetes que da noite pro dia aprenderam a dominar essas caixas malditas, esses computadores pessoais que eu particularmente não entendo droga nenhuma a respeito. Sei passar e-mail, e olhe lá. Mais que isso a pessoa acaba cometendo crime sem nem saber. Mas então, esses moleques. Quem eles pensam que são? Com seus pcs, seu mouses, seus usbs, seus ipods, seus energéticos, suas músicas barulhentas, seus conhecimentos de matemática, física, ótimas notas na escolae e seus óculos de grau?

Onde já se viu tamanha obscenidade?

E quanto dinheiro é perdido com a ação desses moleques irresponsáveis? Só Deus sabe o quanto a indústria fonográfica e todas aquelas outras não perdem com a ação desses marginais. Temos que parar com isso agora, antes que nos prejudique mais ainda!

Eu? Não, eu não faço parte de nenhuma gravadora.

Não, companhia de cinema também não.

Eu só gosto de reclamar mesmo.

E aliás, falando nisso, como é feio esse tal desse Radiohead, cacetada!

Lindão.

Ou melhor, lindaço, em Copacabana.

—–

Documentário em:

www.goodcopybadcopy.net

Esse programa é dedicado a Clodovil. Brasilia nunca mais será a mesma.

This following is a post from my entertainment blog sifterx.wordpress.com … link

I am including the original post and some thoughts about the socio-economic implications of the topic

I come here today on the heels of reading two things: the first is musings on John August’s blog about Post-post modernism, and one specific response to it by one of his readers.

“If everything is a reference to a reference to a reference, as so much creative work is currently, then audiences are forced to either “get” everything, or else be alienated by everything. It may work in the short term for a target audience, but the work won’t hold up for long. Once the references become irrelevant, the work built on references becomes, likewise, irrelevant.”

Full post here: http://johnaugust.com/archives/2009/postmodernism-will-eat-itself

This quote was in response to John’s post about how one particular Charlie Brown video signaled to him how we have reached the end of post modernism and are officially in post post modernism. (my personal favorite is another example with Bert and Ernie mash up with the classic MOP song Ante Up)

http://johnaugust.com/archives/2008/charlie-brown-postmodern

The second is my recent foray into the works of Lawrence Lessig (turns out they got words in those bound paper things at the library), specifically Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive In the Hybrid Economy. The book is about how works involving sampling other artists should in fact be unhindered by copyright law to forward this new form of artistry. The biggest examples being Danger Mouse’s Grey Album and more recently Girl Talk’s Feed the Animals (more on revolutionizing music sales in a later post).

While I find Lawrence’s ideas very interesting, and I do agree with him generally on this point, a mix of the response on August’s blog and the mere idea of freeing “remix rights” is a scary.

There is some shit that I cant WAIT to get off the radio. I don’t want AT ALL , for example, want to hear about how Katy Perry kissed a girl (turns out she liked it, she hopes her boyfriend don’t mind it, she just did it to try it), I’m FUCKING DONE with that crap, and there are numerous other songs that, while good at the time, I have no intention of listening to at all in the future. The thought that these songs will live on in NEW songs scares the crap out of me.

But that’s completely beside the point. What I’m truly worried about is the end of original thought. This could potentially spread to other mediums (I always wanted to make a movie where Batman fights Spiderman while dealing with being a vet that came home, and is also a serial killer (or is he?)) let’s stick for the time being to music. Now it would be stupid to say that if this kind of legislation was put through, that all musicians would immediately stop making new material, but all the same, popular culture can only fit so much. Anyone who lived through the early part of this decade can attest to the power of rap music over the entire music industry, just as the 80s did with metal and the 90s did with grunge and alternative rock. If sampling (or remixing, whatever) comes to pass, many creative, talented people in this generation and the next will no doubt focus on this new field of music, where “shit is going down” instead of practicing on the piano or taking vocal lessons. Again, I’m trying to be careful here and again mention that I’m not at all saying no more original music would exist.

The whole medium of music would be changed, and I’m sure we could move beyond it, and Capitol Records can figure some way to still make millions of dollars a year, but what really worries me is that there will be an entire generation growing up on sampled music, sampled movies and all sorts of other crap (last time I tried to sample a goddamn book I got a F for shit called plagiarism). Is that going to send the right message? Don’t get me wrong, remixing is hard work, and involves tons of creativity, but do we want our kids to be thinking “what pieces of this will I need to make that?” rather than simply “how do I make that?” Just like I’m impressed when Macgyver makes a flamethrower out of a tree and a canister of hydrochloric acid (don’t bother thinking about it, I just threw two things together) I’m impressed with the Grey Album, but all the same, I’d prefer a REAL flamethrower (have it on layaway)

Back to the blog comment from earlier and how it relates. This really means that, whenever this eventually happens, we will all need to GET every REFERENCE in order to understand something. It’ll be like the entire world is one never ending episode of Arrested Development, you need to have watched every episode preceeding that episode, as well as have knowledge of what happened to all the other characters to really get all the jokes. That was the show’s biggest problem, viewers didn’t get everything. This is compounded with the fact that in this scenario, you ARE a character, and the characters RARELY ever got any of the jokes.

There is a scene in Pineapple Express where James Franco is forced into an underground bunker, as they push him in, he says “what, is there a rancor or something down there?” in a panic. Me and one of my friends were the ONLY ones in a theatre of two hundred to laugh at this Star Wars reference (to be fair, it made it all the funnier). This means that there was a fraction of this multimillion dollar movie budget that went into this one line. Then, 198 people came into this movie and didn’t get this joke at all, they literally didn’t get as much out of this movie as me and my friend did. Now I don’t think any of those people care at all that they didn’t get that joke, but now imagine a movie where the whole thing was built on references (the Scary Movie franchise is built on this kind of thinking, along with a slew of others like Disaster Movie, Dance Flick, Epic Movie etc etc). VH1’s I Love… series is built on explaining these references to people, kids can watch and find out what the fuck a Chia Pet is (It’s pottery that grows!)

That’s a fuckload of work to do to understand a joke in a movie if now I’m forced to watch an (albeit funny) show just to get the jokes. Even 10 years from now, when on a flashback Friday the Pork and Beans video comes on MTV8 (probably 8, 9 will probably keep to folk-techno and reality TV) my kids will look at me thinking “who the fuck is this guy that needs to step away from his mic to breathe” as I laugh my ass off thinking about “the good ol days”. Watching a single episode of Family guy, or Robot Chicken requires a relatively deep understanding of popular culture in general spanning the last 15-20 years. This is one of the main reasons these shows find a hardcore fan base that loves it, and everyone else just doesn’t get it.

This really begs the question, how NEW is a remix? What if ten years from now, people are remixing remixes we make now? That means we’re recycling music that itself was recycled. Are their shades in quality of “new”ness? Will it be like the B-movie industry or like porn? Now it’s a hot debate topic so it’s cool and interesting, much like Deepthroat was back in the day, but we don’t really hold porn at that same standard any more do we? How will this affect our culture as a whole? My friends and I (I really want to type “me and my friends” here) talk in videogame and movie references all the time, it makes it fun, you feel part of the in crowd, but what if that was required for work: “Matheson, get me a TPS report before I throw you in the Sarlacc Pit” this itself has 2 references, and what if you didn’t watch Office Space and Star Wars (shame on you!), what the fuck do you do at this point?

I know this is an eventuality, that at some point we’re going to allow sampling and copyright law will be changed to some extent somehow to allow it, and I also know we’re not going to go overboard and talk ONLY in references or stop making original movies or writing blogs purely out of Shakespeare quotes. Still, it is a bit worrisome… after all, all that worry about how computers could take over the world is a large reason to why it’ll never happened, just like how we’re careful not to give money the son of the deposed king of Nigeria on that new finangled thing called the internet (catch that Office reference?), hence the overly dramatic title of this post.

Hell, to even get what I’m talking about requires you to have read, heard, or seen atleast 2 dozen different things i make reference to but don’t explain. Even the name of this site itself is a reference to an episode of 30 Rock, so maybe it’s already too late, then again…the first time this problem surfaced Run DMC rocked Walk This Way pretty damn hard…so what the fuck do I know.

Thoughts?

http://www.goodcopybadcopy.net/ <–watch there for free…

Credits.

Wikipedia.

This 2007 documentary by a group of Danish film makers (it is in English, mostly) examines the state of copyright law and its impact on the dissemination of culture. 

Copyright in music is incredibly complicated due to sampling and remix culture. The licensing model for distribution is blurred by the vast spectrum of different types of usage of samples. 

This film is thought provoking and touches on the increasingly prominent issue of digital distribution. The film does a good job of sampling a number of perspectives on rights managements with interviews that range from Swedish filesharers to an American MPAA maven to Nigerian filmmakers to a Brazilian tecno brega producer. 

The film has a very grassroots feel and is distributed freely and is released under a Creative Commons: Attribution- NonCommercial license.

Content rating: 9.5/10

Style rating: 4/10

anlaeeslich des gerade zuende gegangen elevate 2008, gibts diesmal die 3 filme die waehrend des festivals gezeigt wurden. die ersten beiden hatte ich hier schonmal, kann man aber trotzdem nochmal drauf hinweisen.

Good Copy Bad Copy:

Good Copy Bad Copy, A documentary about the current state of copyright and culture, is a documentary about copyright and culture in the context of Internet, peer-to-peer file sharing and other technological advances. Directed by Andreas Johnsen, Ralf Christensen, and Henrik Moltke.

It features interviews with many people with various perspectives on copyright, including copyright lawyers, producers and artists.

A central point of the documentary is the thesis that “creativity itself is on the line” and that a balance needs to be struck, or that there is a conflict, between protecting the right of those who own intellectual property and the rights of future generations to create.
[wikipedia]

Der große Ausverkauf:

Im Film wird dem Zuschauer das Thema Privatisierung nahe gelegt. In vier Beispielen werden verschiedene Sichten von Betroffenen dieser Privatisierungen gezeigt, die von den oft inhumanen und fehlgeleiteten Versuchen, das Wirtschaftswachstum zu steigern, unmittelbar betroffen sind. Dies sind Menschen, die sich auf ihre ganz persönliche Art und Weise dagegen zur Wehr setzen.
[wikipedia]

GOOD COPY BAD COPY (2007)
- a documentary about the current state of copyright and culture

Filmen GCBC er en super indføring i en verden af copyright i en kultur som befinder gør rigtig godt brug af internettet. Og ja, det er en dansk produktion instrueret i 2007 af Andreas Johnsen, Ralf Christensen, og Henrik Moltke. (se hele filmen ovenfor, eller en smule større på Google.video)

De kommer viser ændringer i forskellige verdendele i relation til kunst og kultur (Nigeria, Sverige, Brasilien, England og USA). Deltagernerne har forskelligt perspektiv på copyright, og det inkluderer bla. copyright advokaten Lawrence Lessig fra Creative Commons (og WIRED), Tiamo og Anakata fra The Pirate Bay, musik producers og kontroversielle musikere som Girl Talk og Danger Mouse som blev super kendt sit “The Grey Album” – et mix af The Beatles’ “White Album” med  Jay-Z’s “Black Album”.
MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) deltager også med en forklaring om deres involvering i forsøget på at lukke The Pirat Bay.

www.goodcopybadcopy.net

Link: GOOD COPY BAD COPY på Wikipedia

På filmens website gør de det klart, at de selv har valgt at lægge filmen ud på nettet til fri download (DivX, 700 MB). Så hvis du vil se den i høj opløsning så tryk her – hent Torrent. (Du skal downloade et program som fx. VUZE for at kunne downloade torrents)

Se også denne forelæsning “Free Culture” af Lawrence Lessig (60 min.)

das wochenende wirds hier (wahrscheinlich) sehr ruhig bleiben, darum fasse ich mal kurz zusammen was man so am wochenende unternehmen kann/soll:

* Demo “Freiheit statt Angst 2008″ (berlin/international – sa 2008-10-11)

Bürgerrechtlerinnen und Bürgerrechtler rufen bundesweit zur Teilnahme an einer Demonstration gegen die ausufernde Überwachung durch Wirtschaft und Staat auf. Am Samstag, den 11. Oktober 2008 werden besorgte Bürgerinnen und Bürger in Berlin unter dem Motto “Freiheit statt Angst – Stoppt den Überwachungswahn!” auf die Straße gehen. Treffpunkt ist der Alexanderplatz um 14.00 Uhr.
[alles weitere unter freiheit-statt-angst.de]

zeitgleich finden unter dem selben motto auch dezentrale demos weltweit statt.
[alle infos dazu hier]

und als einstimmung gibts auch zahlreiche musikstuecke zum thema und ein kurzes video.

* Lange Nacht der Spiele (wien – fr 2008-10-10)

19:00-02:00
7 Stunden
Alter: Jugendliche ab 16 und Erwachsene
Gratis
Ort: wienXtra-spielebox
8., Albertgasse 35/II
U6: Josefstädterstraße
Bus: 13A
Bim: 5, 33, J

Beim großen nächtlichen Spiele-Event kommen knifflige Denkspiele, fantasievolle Rollenspiele und coole Actionspiele auf den Tisch. Bei der Riesen-Auswahl in der wienXtra-spielebox ist bestimmt für jede/n etwas dabei!
[alles weitere steht hier]
via

* Elevate Tour / Elevate Festival (graz/international – fr 2008-10-10 und danach)

Im Rahmen des Grazer Tourstops wird – bei freiem Eintritt – der dänische Dokumentarfilm „Good Copy Bad Copy“ (2007) im zweiten Floor der Postgarage gezeigt. Als Einstieg in das Thema des Festivals „Elevate The Commons“ klärt der Film zum aktuellen Stand von Copyright und (freier) Kultur im Netz auf. Die Musik steuerten De La Soul, Grey-Album-Mixer DJ Danger Mouse und weitere illustre KünstlerInnen wie der aus Pittsburgh stammende Soundbastler Girltalk bei.

22:00 Uhr – Musik von österreichischen KünstlerInnen auf beiden Floors
[alles weitere zum grazer tourstop steht hier]

es finden auch noch weitere tourstops in wien, bratislava, zagreb, ljubljana und innsbruck statt -> mehr dazu hier

als kleiner teaser:
das elevate festival selber findet von 05.11. – 09.11.2008 in graz statt. aber dazu werde ich nochmal extra was schreiben, denn das programm sieht auch abseits der musik sehr, sehr spannend aus.
irgendwie auch via

thinking about steal this film (both one, as well as two), as well as reading this blurb of an interview, has gotten me thinking about films that have been widely distributed via bittorrent. there are only a few other examples i can think of, the most recent of which being michael moore’s “slacker uprising.”

i seem to remember the john kerry and moveon.org swift boat veterans for truth rebuttal film (called something, something… upstream?) being distributed via bittorent, as well as “good copy, bad copy” which we showed last spring… are there any others?

does LEGITEMATELY distributing a film FOR FREE via bittorrent trackers mean that someone could screen it freely? not legally probably, but does that line of thinking hold up as far as the big picture goes? if something’s freely available (slacker uprising for instance) what’s the difference between putting it on a big screen and showing it to a ton of people for free, and telling them to all go home and download it for themselves?

Alex of on-point.be showed me this Danish documentary about copyright. It’s definitely worth a view (and so is a visit to on-point.be). A lot of viewpoints mentioned in the documentary were also mentioned in the discussions on triiibes.

One quote really struck me:

“You have this new competitor that is ‘everyone else’. So the law has been consistently changed in the past 12 years in order to protect certain very specific interests, especially for the North American cultural industry in order to prevent society from becoming the producer of culture in itself and for itself.”

These words come from Ronaldo Lemos, a Brazilian law professor at FGV Brasil. The fact that “we” have become the most important competitor for the cultural industry, shouldn’t amaze us.

C u l t u r e  i s  m e a n i n g

Culture is in essence giving meaning to life. Culture is what we do. We stage stuff in order to make it meaningful, in order to explain stuff and/or touch people. Move them so you like.

Yet certain ways of expressing ourselves have specifically been made possible through an industry who wants something in return for that ’stage’ and these ‘means’. That’s the businessmodel in the cultural industry as we know it.

These industries made it possible for artists to express them in a certain way and at a certain scale. They also made it possible for us to experience these cultural meanings which woudln’t have reached us otherwise. They offered the means of production, distribution and marketing.

W e  d o n ‘ t  n e e d  t h e m  a n y m o r e

Yet it has become much easier to produce , distribute and market music, movies or graphics these days because of the internet and new software. It seems people (artists and audience) are asking themselves: what do we need these industries for?

By pirating and copying stuff people simply point out to the old cultural industries that they don’t need them anymore to fullfill these tasks. They don’t need them anymore to (re)create, distribute and share these cultural expressions anymore.

Today’s cultural industries should realize that they aren’t the only ones who create valuable meanings (culture). They’ve never been the only ones and they never will be.

M i s u s i n g  t h e  s c a r c i t y  a p p r o a c h

The way copyright laws are used now suggests that the cultural industries simply want to create added value by organizing scarcity. They want to limit access to making culture, to making meaning. They want to channel it, control it.

That’s the real meaning behind Ronaldo Lemos’ words. It’s frightening, because it shows how distorted the view of the current (American) cultural industry really is.

W h a t ‘ s  t h e  f u t u r e  t h e n ?

Where-in lies the future of these industries then?

• If making culture means giving meaning, then why is it worthy for us to help certain people giving meaning in certain ways to certain people?
• How worthy is this and to whom?
• How can we explain this in terms of value and money?
• What’s the difference between enabler and creator?
• Is a meaning a product, a service, an experience or something else? And what does that mean?

F o l k  a n d  f u n d a m e n t a l i s m

Let me end this with another quote from the documentary, this time from “Girl Talk”, a music artist who mainly uses samples of other artists to create his own songs. The guy just remixed a Brazilian Techno Brega remix of Gnarls Barkley’s hit crazy.

“It’s like folk.”

Brilliant, really. “Girl Talk” explains that first Barkley had a story to tell and he used a particular format for it.

Then the Brazilian producer mashed up his song to tell his particular story (adapted to his audience and his context). And now “Girl Talk” uses that mashed up story again to tell his story.

If you think about it, it’s Shakespeare. His plays are also intelligent mash-ups and remixes of stories and myths which were also mash-ups and remixes, and so on.

Just imagine for a second there’s this myth, produced by a publishing company containing some valuable information about how the world works but also containing some crap and – because it is dated – stuff which cannot make sense anymore later on because society changes.

But because of copyright we cannot speak of these subjects anymore, rephrase the myth, readjust its expressions so our kids and their kids and their friends abroad can also understand what life is all about?

Basically that’s fundamentalism. That’s what happened to almost all great religious scriptures. That’s what happens if we allow others to make our meanings and simply say once to often

“Amen”.

I watched this a couple of weeks ago on another blog and thought it was a highly worthy view. A Danish documentary exploring the current state of copyright and our culture. The film takes a good angle on the debate and addresses what is art/intellectual property – as well as the current state of the music industry and piracy. I think the more impressive part of the film is just how the filmmakers sought out an expansive world viewpoint/commentary on the subject ranging from the Pirate Political Party in Sweden to the music and film industries of Nigeria & Brazil.

Needless to say, hip-hop and sampling is where they mostly start off and is at the center of the debate. An example in the film is of NWA’s sample of a Parliament Funkadelic guitar chord on their track 100 Miles and Runnin’ that apparently started the ball rolling.

“A central point of the documentary is the thesis that creativity itself is on the line and that a balance needs to be struck, or that there is a conflict, between protecting the right of those who own intellectual property and the rights of future generations to create.”

Features interviews with Girl Talk, Danger Mouse and some interesting industry insiders and outsiders.

Since we’re on the subject…

Girl Talk’s Feed the Animals – HERE

DJ Danger Mouse The Grey Album – HERE

The movie is about an hour long so give it time to load or have a high speed connection. Enjoy…

]]>