Communicating With Collective Culture

Oh, and did you see Lawrence Lessig with his new book Remix on the Colbert Report last Friday? Well, if you didn't, you can't watch it on YouTube, which is sort of sharply illustrative of the issues at hand considering the topic and the fact that Lessig issued a remix challenge using the segment itself as source material.

The interview was not that exciting aside from Stephen's on-air remix of the book with his Sharpie, but the intellectual property/usage/rights issues were some of the same ones that continually poke at my brain, so I was engaged. In my own endeavors, I don't want to screw other people over, but technology has changed the playing field even if it hasn't yet clearly changed the rules of the game we're playing.

For instance, I took a picture to illustrate this post from the NYTimes website without asking for permission. I did it to illustrate a bit of what Lessig was talking about, but I feel guilty about having done it, which is how my mom and the Catholic church taught me to identify that my actions are wrong. Does it matter that the only reason that picture would be here is 1) to attract attention the article it links to and 2) to make this page more intellectually interesting and attractive? I could argue that this post is simply "added value" and does not devalue any of the original content in any way. We have to think about how the digital age has changed the idea of copies and distribution, but not money, of course, and that's generally where and why things get confusing and uncomfortable. These days the copies and the distribution come practically free, but the content can cost a fortune in blood, sweat, or actual cash to produce, and that tends to make people nervous and protective. The NYTimes would hardly have cared about my little xeroxing escapades at Kinkos, but should they care about my blog? I can argue that it harms no one, but should that matter? What if they don't like people like me who write about arts and culture and don't want to be associated with my "brand". Is that enough? Can this stand on a "fair use" argument, or are we pushing our luck and our common morality trying to justify such actions with that one?

I like the idea of a creative commons, but I'm not sure I feel that participation should be mandatory. But if participation isn't mandatory, big guys like Viacom and the NYT won't/can't/don't have to waste their time with small fries like me. This can take the thinking in a few directions. The one I can really throw my support to is the "too bad, make your own" argument because it might actually lead to even more and higher quality creative output. If I can't use your picture, I might create an even better one to fill the void. However, then I create in my own sandbox, and there's no drawing a mustache on a metaphoric Mona Lisa anymore.