Very similar to Lethem’s article about copyright law, privileges and coincidences was Lessig’s “Remix.” We have all seen a million videos (I could be exaggerating) on the website YouTube. Some are parodies of a movie, some are direct re-enactments, and others however little there are… are original. It was heartbreaking to hear that the mother wanted to post a video of her infant son, but was violating copyright laws. This poses a question in my mind of, “What makes this video different from any other?” People sing and post cover songs all of the time; however that is not considered copyright infringement—at least not to the severity that the mother was threaten with. It just baffles me how someone can consider an innocent mother and child as violating copyright laws but when someone has a song mash-up, and post it, that’s not in violation. CRAZY.
In Lessig’s article, what really stood out to me was that we can only make the best progress when we are aware of all previous efforts. This generally means that our society is progressing and the only way to really achieve re-creation of a finished project is to be informed of what was done before you and giving credit where credit is due. “The extreme of regulation that copyright law has become makes it difficult, and sometimes impossible, for a wide range of creativity that any free society— if it thought about it for just a second— would allow to exist, legally.” Since the internet openly allows everyone to share their songs, art, literature and everything else publicly, it’s easier to trace back and define who was “first” to say it blatant; however there is no clean cut answer on where copyright laws are appropriate.
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