Larry Lessig sheds light onto a troubling and cumbersome issue in his book, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy.  In Part One of his book, Lessig discusses the cultures of our past and compares it to the cultures of our future.  While discussing the cultures of our past, Lessig writes about the “RW Culture Versus RO Culture” and later goes on to discusses how “nature is remade,” as well as “re-remaking nature.”  Lessig also discusses “RW” which he sums up as “revived” and discusses the importance behind remixing text and media.  Moreover, Lessig discusses in RW how writing is beyond words, and how our society and generation are in an era that is changing.  He writes, out with “the old in the new.”

What was interesting about Lessig’s point about “the old in the new” was when he wrote “Remixed media succeed when they show others something new; they fail when they are trite or derivative.”  Though this may be true that individuals get easily bored when something is boring and repetitive, isn’t most media repeated?  For example, aren’t romantic movies have a same general storyline structure?

In Jonathan Lethem’s article, “The Ecstasy of Influence,” Lethem discusses how William S. Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch, incorporated writing from other writers’ texts into his work.  Though Lethem was shocked as he was taught by his teachers that this “cut-up method” is considered plagiarism, Lethem explains how he could not contain his excitement and that “the hairs on my neck stood up” while reading Burroughs’ book.

Instead of condemning Burroughs’ stealing technique, Lethem boldly states in his article that Burroughs “was no plagiarist at all.”  Though I sometimes agree that imitation is the best form of flattery, I strongly believe that plagiarism is no form of flattery.  More so, it is a form of stealing and is thus just for one to sue due to the stealing of one’s property.  In Lethem’s article, he also discusses intellectual property.

While discussing intellectual property, Lethem highlights how technology expansion is making it more difficult as “technology is exposing those restrictions…”  As technology is in fact getting faster, easier to use, and more universally accessed, this should be even more of a reason to protect one’s ideas, thoughts, copyrights, etc so that no one experiences stealing and plagiarism.

Though Lethem writes about the “beauty of second uses,” even he agrees that copyrights and intellectual property should rightly belong to the individual who created it when talking about “usemonopoly.”  Hence, as copyrights are a form of intellectual property as are ideas, words, song lyrics, etc, one should believe that imitation is not always flattery as imitation in the context of plagiarism is stealing and cheating.

The Huffington Post is a news website and blog that features a range of topics including world news and politics.  It is often utilized as a site that features commentary from other news sources, columnists, activists, bloggers, etc.  This excerpt was published here because it includes information that about the controversial website, WikiLeaks, and Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.  Assange and his site are known for posting private information about our nation that our government may be keeping secret from our nation’s citizens.  Micah L. Sifry is the author of “WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency.”  His interest in writing on this topic and Assange is because Sifry firmly believes that “the knowledge of how to build and maintain such networks is now widespread.”  WikiLeaks is not a Wiki, but is website that publishes and allows commentary on government documents that have been leaked.  WikiLeaks is known for its controversial material, and have often been sued over its publications as they can pose a threat to national security.  WikiLeaks is important because it is providing information and even giving security to individuals who believe that the government is keeping vital information from its citizens.  Sifry’s main point in writing this excerpt is to make light of the fact that technology is changing politics.  In this day and age, with the ease of being able to link together publicly, technology is making it easier to spread information and connect ideas from individuals from countries all around the world.  Silfry makes a convincing argument as he makes the defensive argument that “anti-WikiLeaks backlash is futile” because “the transparency movement is not going away.”

I like Silfry’s argument because he makes logical points backed up by hard-hitting evidence of the awareness success that WikiLeaks has brought.  I personally think that WikiLeaks is just as it allows individuals to exercise their First Amendment rights, however, it somewhat terrifies me as I realize what the government really may be keeping secret.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/09/wikileaks-assange-transparency_n_820348.html