By Marc Weidenbaum Matthew's previous post got me thinking about a lot of different things, starting with the possible illusion that remix-based music production is inherently simple to accomplish. While the effect of a turntable can be approximated with a mouse click, to equate the two is to miss the qualities inherent in vinyl manipulation (and other such means of working with recorded sound, from John Cage's sliced tapes, to CD mixing, to real-time digital synthesis). A turntablist actively … [Read more...]

By Matthew GuerrieriI wanted to delve a little deeper into the whole question of what remixing means for aesthetics and culture; Lessig doesn't talk about it much (I didn't expect him to, it's not really the point of the book), but for me, perhaps predictably, it's one of the more interesting questions around the whole topic.Part of the usual defense of remix culture involves citing one or more salutary remixed works, but I'm going to be contrarian and start off with a particularly inane … [Read more...]

A lot of Remix rests on questions of access ("Not necessarily free access. Access." p. 46)--access to content and then the freedom to use and alter that content. Related to that, then, one item that kept nagging at me as I read Lessig's book is how fast we're approaching a basic literacy that requires computer literacy. And that means not just that you can Google and send an email, but that you can edit media with real fluency and that you are comfortable organizing and processing a large … [Read more...]

By Brian SacawaAs Lessig explains in the preface to Remix, a central motivation for his crusade calling for the reform of current copyright law is a concern for his children and the fate of their generation. In the current digital climate, certain activities that have become completely natural to kids, including many creative processes made available by digital technology, are deemed criminal acts. What will be the outcome, Lessig wonders, in a society when a whole generation is raised as … [Read more...]

By Marc WeidenbaumBy and large, I don't merely drink but regularly swim in the brand, flavor, and vintage of Kool-Aid that Lawrence Lessig serves up. The issues that are central to Remix, and to Lessig's work in general, are fairly core to my own understanding of cultural consumption and of the roles of artists and consumers, and the institutions and technologies that mediate the relationship between them. If what he's getting at is that the 20th century was an anomaly in the way that music (for … [Read more...]

By Matthew Guerrieri I'll concur up front with Lessig's underlying argumentative framework: that copyright law, in its current state, is onerous and impractical, and that using the courts to determine IP licensing guidelines is ham-fisted and counterproductive. There were two things, though, that I kept thinking while reading the book. They're kind of related. The first has to do with Lessig's whole idea that we need to decriminalize read/write culture--remixing, amateur mash-ups, … [Read more...]

By Marc GeelhoedI want to get behind Lessig's credo, and make it easier and legal for everyone everywhere to have access to all cultural artifacts and use them as they see fit, for free. If for no other reason than not everyone can afford to buy every song they want, or every book, they ought to be able to get them and digest them and be fulfilled by everything they want. I get that. But I've got a couple problems with Lessig's thesis, mainly stemming from how he frames the past and present, but … [Read more...]

I've been impressed by Lawrence Lessig's public speaking and am a fan of his work on projects such as Creative Commons. Still, I didn't want to drink the Kool-Aid on his book before I'd even cracked the cover, so I tried to start in a defensive position. Knowing full well that I am a reader easily seduced by tidy arguments and good writing, I proceeded from graph to graph with caution.    Extra Credit Lessig at the NY Pubic Library Lessig: How creativity is being strangled by the … [Read more...]

Some books just insist that you take the topic beyond the page, and so this week I'm super excited to inaugurate Blogger Book Club here at Mind the Gap. First off the shelf for discussion is the sure-to-stir-debate Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy by Lawrence Lessig. Once upon a time I heard the name Lawrence Lessig mentioned during a panel at a publishing conference, and a room full of adults actually hissed in response. Who was this beast? As it turned out, he was a … [Read more...]