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