1 day ago
July 4, 2009
500 (blog) years after its release, I finally saw RiP: A remix manifesto.
In a nutshell: it’s a documentary about how contemporary copyright laws don’t work in the Internet age. The film cities lots of current issues in the world of music and uses guys like Girl Talk as protagonists to prove its point. Overall, it’s really interesting and really well done… BUT… there are a few gaping holes that really mute the overall impact of the film. Specifically:
- The film blurs the lines between remixing music (i.e. creating something new out of something old) and simply downloading mp3’s (i.e. for consumption, as is, without paying for them). While the RIAA lawsuits they reference are totally insane, there’s no way you can argue the labels, publishers, and artists don’t have a right to make money off their investments.
- The film discounts the idea that sampled works contribute to the success of an artist. Nostalgia and irony play a HUGE part in Girl Talk’s initial success.
- The film assumes that every piece of remixed content has some sort of creative merit. That’s tough pill to swallow when there’s so much bad remixed/reworked stuff splattered across the Internet.
- Finally, the film doesn’t offer any practical solutions to the copyright challenge. No new business models proposed, no suggestions on appropriate legal reform.
I realize that if I truly got the gist of this film, I wouldn’t be moaning about this, but rather creating a remix/response to the original film… but let’s be real, my video editing ability is limited to fast forwarding on my PVR.
Either way, really great documentary, really entertaining… and it’s Canadian too! You can watch the trailer here, or download the entire thing here, or you can stream it in nice bite size chunks here. Or - if you’re like me - you can watch on any Air Canada flight right now… while recovering from having someone puke on you.




