Response to selections from Lessig's Remix

Lessig’s Remix introduced me to the notion of Read/Only and Read/Write cultures; these terms are extremely useful for thinking about the way people interact with media. I was especially astounded by his analysis of “free access” which reveals the profound influence technology has on a society’s expectations about their rights to engage in “remix” practices; Lessig answers many questions I have grown up asking about copyright laws by breaking down the distinctions between different media forms in a way that illuminates their fundamental nature as different forms of “literacy.”

The example of composers like Sousa arguing against “machine music” speaks to a debate I have been engaged in since middle school (when I first began playing massively multiplayer online games like Runescape)—I would often get into online discussions about music where I had to defend my preferences for bands like Dragonforce and Dream Theater, which heavily utilize synthesizers to achieve their particular sound, against more “pure” forms of music which emphasize playing instruments with no digital effects. Common ideas I encountered were that “pure” music is channeled directly from the artist through an instrument with which he has a virtuosic connection; my opponents claimed that such a connection was impossible to replicate using (to borrow Sousa’s term) “machine music,” frequently citing their own personal experiences playing instruments which I, unfortunately, had none of. I knew, but had difficulty articulating, that computers were instruments, too, even if they relied on “samples” collected from dubious sources in the creation of songs. It seemed to me that computers offered the potential to go beyond the capabilities of normal instruments in creating more technical and nuanced soundcapes. Lessig suggests that therein lies the power of RW culture—remixing occurs when individuals take bits from different sources to produce a new work, and these new works are always in conversation with those they derive from. This seems to be no different than the conversations that occurred between classical composers, with each new symphony produced advancing the dialogue on music, although the crucial change that has occurred is that the new digital tools we have for creating media now empowers far more people to participate in the conversation.

One project which absolutely confirms the power of Lessig’s RW culture is one of my favorite web series, The League of Extraordinary Dancers (LXD).

It is an episodic superhero narrative about amazing dancers with supernatural abilities. Since its inception I’ve been enthralled by the highly choreographed, seemingly physics-defying displays of dance, and it’s not just the spectacle itself—LXD has revealed to me (and its broad internet audience) the rhetorical potential of dance to tell amazing stories. What I have not known since the show began is that these dancers, who are pulling off unprecedented feats of human acrobatics, were actually recruited from the Internet. This TED talk explains how dancers across the world are posting their moves online for others to watch, replicate, and improve upon. This is RW culture in action, and LXD creator Jon Chu has capitalized on this evolution in dance by taking some of the raw talent produced through Youtube conversations, applying his professional expertise in choreography and cinematography, and (through collaboration) offering them the opportunity to spread their message of dance to a whole new audience—people like me who might never have realized that things like this were going on.

Remix is a book I am going to have to buy—from this 100-page selection alone I feel I have moved significantly forward in my understanding of digital rhetorics (plus I have begun thinking about P2P file-sharing in an entirely new way thanks to Lessig addressing the moral dilemmas faced by those of my generation who have grown up being labeled as “pirates” simply because certain entities desire to exert control over digital literacy).