Embrace the remix Kirby Ferguson

we’re gonna begin in 1964 Bob Dylan is

23 years old

and his career is just reaching its

pinnacle he’s been christened the voice

of a generation

and he’s churning out classic songs at a

seemingly impossible rate but there’s a

small minority of dissenters and they

claim Bob Dylan is stealing other

people’s songs 2004 Brian Burton aka

Danger Mouse takes the Beatles White

Album combines it with JC is the Black

Album to create the grey out the grey um

becomes an immediate sensation online

and the Beatles record company sends out

countless cease and desist letters for

unfair competition and dilution of our

valuable property now the gray album is

a remix it is new media created from old

media it was made using these three

techniques copy transform and combine

that’s how your evening so you take

existing songs you chop them up you

transform the pieces you combine them

back together again you’ve got a new

song but that new song is clearly

comprised of old songs but I think these

aren’t just the components of remix in I

think these are the basic elements of

all creativity I think everything is a

remix and I think this is a better way

to conceive of creativity alright let’s

head back to 1964 and let’s hear where

some of Dylan’s early songs came from

you can do some side-by-side comparisons

here all right this first song you’re

going to hear is not him in town it’s

your traditional folk tune after that

you’ll hear at Dylan’s masters of war

damn you masters of war if it fell the

big guns if it fell at airplanes hit

bellow the bombs so that’s the same

basic melody and overall structure this

next one is the Patriot game by Dominic

bein alongside that you’re gonna hear

with God on our side

oh my means less the country our

cover is called the Midwest okay so in

this case still limits he must have

heard the Patriot game he forgot about

it

then one song kind of bubbled back up in

his brain he just thought it was his

song last one this is who’s gonna buy

your ribbons another traditional folk

tune alongside that is don’t think twice

it’s all right this one’s more about the

lyric

• sit-ins I

and it ain’t no use to sit and cry

whether they know you sit in 105 it even

you don’t know by now and you know you

sin 105 it they don’t ever do somehow

okay now there’s a lot of these it’s

been estimated that two-thirds of the

Melody’s Dylan used in his early songs

were borrowed this is pretty typical

among folk singers here’s the advice of

Dylan’s Idol Woody Guthrie the words are

the important thing

don’t worry about tunes take a tune sing

high when they sing low sing fast when

they sing slow and you’ve got a new tune

and that’s that’s what Guthrie did right

here and I’m sure you all recognize the

results

soon right we know it actually you don’t

that is when the world’s on fire very

old melody in this case performed by the

Carter Family

Guthrie adapted it into this land is

your lab so Bob Dylan like all folk

singers he copied melodies he

transformed them he combined them with

new lyrics which were frequently their

own concoction of previous stuff now

American copyright and patent laws run

counter to this notion that we build on

the work of others instead these laws

and laws around the world use the rather

awkward analogy of property

now if creative works may indeed be kind

of like property but it’s property that

we’re all building on and creations can

only take root and grow once that

grounds been prepared Henry Ford once

said I invented nothing new I simply

assembled the discoveries of other men

behind whom were centuries of work

progress happens when all the factors

that make for it already and then it is

inevitable 2007 the iPhone makes its

debut Apple undoubtedly brings us

innovation to us early but it’s time was

approaching because its core technology

had been evolving for decades

that’s multi-touch controlling a device

by touching its display here is Steve

Jobs introducing multi-touch and making

a rather foreboding at the joke and we

have invented a new technology called

multi-touch you can do multi-finger

gestures on it and boy have we patented

it yes and yes here is multi-touch in

action this is that Ted actually about a

year earlier this is Jeff Hahn and I

mean that’s probably touch it’s the same

animal at least let’s hear what Jeff

Hahn has to say about this newfangled

technology multi-touch sensing isn’t

anything isn’t completely new I mean

people like Bill Buxton have been

playing around with in the 80s the

technology you know isn’t isn’t the most

exciting thing here right now other than

probably its newfound accessibility so

he’s pretty frank about it not being new

so it’s not multi-touch as a whole

that’s patented it’s the small parts of

it that are and it’s in these small

details where we can clearly see patent

law contradicting its intent to promote

the progress of useful arts here is the

first upper slide to unlock that is all

there is to it

Apple has patented this it’s a 28-page

software patent but I will summarize

what it covers

spoiler alert unlocking your phone by

sliding an icon with your finger I’m I’m

only exaggerating a little bit it’s a

broad patent now can someone own this

idea now back in the 80s there were no

software patents and it was Xerox that

pioneered the graphical user interface

what if they had patented pop-up menus

scrollbars the desktop with icons that

look like folders and sheets of paper

what a young and inexperienced Apple

have survived the legal assault for much

larger and more mature company like

Xerox

now this idea that everything is remix

might sound like common sense

until you’re the one getting remixed for

example I mean Picasso had a saying they

said good artists copy great artists

steal and we have you know always been

shameless about stealing great ideas yes

that’s 96 here’s 2010 I’m going to

destroy Android because it’s a stolen

product I’m willing to go thermonuclear

war on this okay so in other words great

artists steal but not from me

now the herbal economist might refer to

this sort of thing as loss aversion we

have a strong predisposition towards

protecting what we feel is ours we have

no such aversion towards copying what

other people have because we do that

non-stop so here’s the sort of equation

we’re looking at

we’ve got lost the fundamentally true

creative works as property plus massive

rewards or settlements infringement

cases plus huge legal fees to protect

yourself in court plus cognitive biases

against perceived loss and the some

looks like this that is the last four

years of lawsuits in the realm of

smartphones is this promoting the

progress of useful arts nineteen

eighty-three Bob Dylan is 42 years old

and it’s time in the cultural spotlight

has long since passed he Accords a song

called Blind Willie McTell named after

the blue singer the song is a voyage

through the past through a much darker

time but a simpler one a time of

musicians like Willie McTell

had few illusions about what they did I

jump them from other writers but I

arrange them my own way

I think this is mostly what we do our

creativity comes from without not from

within

we are not self-made we are dependent on

one another and omitting this to

ourselves isn’t an embrace of mediocrity

and derivative miss it’s a liberation

from our misconceptions and it’s an

incentive to not expect so much from

ourselves and to simply begin thank you

so much

thank you