Film Review: RiP – A Remix Manifesto
March 3rd, 2009 Filed under: Reviews - Film by admin
Film Review – RiP: A Remix Manifesto
Directed by Brett Gaylor
EyeSteel Film and National Film Board
At first sight RIP – A Remix Manifesto is just another privacy-promoting film, of course in the eyes of people who never even try to consider what they are being told to believe is really true. To add to the confusion, filmmaker Brett Gaylor refers to the picture an an “open-source documentary”. People in the computer industry will not get what they expect in it, and people who are not familiar with the term “open-source” don’t even know what to think.
Too bad, because RIP – A Remix Manifesto is one of the most well-made documentaries you could ever encounter. Being officially backed up by the Canadian government, you will be astounded by what you see and what is openly discussed in this picture. The concern on matter of copyright in the United States (in particular), dates back at least 200 years and the whole idea of copyright has been evolving throughout the 20th century. If you look at history, you might notice the copyright battles of epic proportions come hand-in-hand with appearance of new mediums as a form of technological revolution. Animation in the 30′s, rock music in the 60′s, home-video in the 80′s, and finally, the biggest of all – the personal computer and the Internet in the 90′s – all of these inventions triggered a wave of corporate wrath.
As people get easier access to information, apart from all other consequences, there is one that is very important to the concept of RIP, and it is the fact that people can get a full picture of what the world has to offer, which in turn serves as an underlying moving force of creativity. While some concentrate on reinventing the wheel (with and, much more often, without success) many draw inspiration from artists of the past and instead of inventing new pieces, rearrange the existing ones to create a mosaic of art novelty. A typical example of a contemporary artist, who does that, is Gregg Gillis from Girl Talk. A Canadian born mashup artist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania specializes on remixing unauthorized samples from dozens of songs to create new ones. And no doubt, in terms of law, he is a criminal.
A famous Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein has spent his life contemplating on the nature of philosophy and its connection to language. He came to the conclusion that could be summarized as: “All philosophical debate is caused by semantics and interpretation of the language”. Before we condemn privacy, let’s ask ourselves. What is the real meaning of the word? Why does it even exist? Are sharing and inspiration crimes? The law, represented with language, can’t keep up with notions technology provides us with in 21st century, let alone formulate a way to make them illegal. It can’t even define them well (think “Napster” and “torrents”).
When that happens, the interests of corporations are protected in the most strict manner by the Cerberus of the industry, be it RIAA or MPAA. They pull the plug. They just cut the Damoclean Knot, leaving us with songs like “Happy Birthday” copyrighted and sealed, protecting only businesses, not people. A form of art can only make it into the public domain 70 years after the author’s death, and by that time its actuality and credibility might be lost.
The amount of information in RIP is overwhelming. Hundreds of examples, dozens of people, who suffered from copyright litigation, outrageous cases and proof that the so-called “original” acts were copyright infringers of their own. Still, Brett Gaylor believes this world has a chance, giving us a glimpse on people working on the Copyleft Revolution, be it the Creative Commons founder, Lawrence Lessig, Brazil’s Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil or pop culture critic Cory Doctorow.
This isn’t justifying piracy. This is a must-see for every single person. No exceptions.
Opens in Toronto March 13 .
** Catch RiP: A Remix Manifesto Early as part of the DOXA Documentary Film Series**
Sunday, March 8, 2009 at 7:00pm at the Vancity Theatre, 1181 Seymour St., Vancouver
By Arceon
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