Lawrence Lessig, an author and Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, has written extensively about technology and copyright. He has written five books about this topic. His most recent book, Remix, addresses the most contemporary issues with copyright in our ever-changing society.

Lessig makes a strong case for our legal copyright system to “decriminalize creativity before we further criminalize a generation of our kids.” He starts out the first part of his book describing the culture we have evolved from to what we have now. By using a historical and relational map of how copyright laws and technology have influenced it, it is easy although lengthy to see how American arts and access to them have been limited.

He describes a “cultural emptiness” because of all the limitations people have endured to access songs, movies, TV shows, etc. We have been formed to consume professionalized arts. Lessig makes it seem that we can no longer appreciate the arts for what they should be because of strict copyright laws. He places great importance on reigniting a remix approach. We as a society should be able to get a hold of and use a song, part of a movie, and phrase in literature to create even more art. We should be able to do this without having to worry about breaking a copyright law. We ought to be free to see creative things and make them as well so that our culture becomes more sophisticated.

Did you notice that there are two Snow White influenced movies set to come out later this year? There is “Mirror, mirror” with Julia Roberts and “Snow White and the Huntsman” with Kristen Stewart. I love movies and find it really interesting that Hollywood has not had enough creative juices to make things unique and fresh. The industry seems to just chop ideas up, put a new spin on it, and then call it a new concept.

This is the time we live in. People have ideas in the forms of songs, stories, and movies. Apparently, these ideas are for everyone to appreciate and to use as their own. This is the concept that Jonathan Lethem addresses in his essay “The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism”

Lethem is an American novelist mainly of the science fiction sort. He writes short stories and essays like the one featured on Harper’s Online. Upon researching Lethem, I found that he wrote this essay on plagiarism in 2007 before he actually published a book with a similar title in 2011 – “The Ecstasy of Influence: Nonfictions, etc.” I wonder if he uses “the ecstasy of influence” as an umbrella for lots of his work. It could be a title for his blog and collection of thoughts. His essay is kind of like a blog entry. He addresses the concept of plagiarism as a sharing of ideas that our society has come to do without really thinking of it.

The essay begins with a story of two authors who had worked together. One author originally wrote a story about a girl named Lolita. The other author made the story popular by publishing it . Then there was the instance of how Bob Dylan made popular a phrase (used by someone else) by using it in a song.  This concept ties into my mention of the Snow White movies. Others and their ideas influence creative people to create their own rendition.  Coming from an educational standpoint that could be considered plagiarism.

Yet, Lethem argues that its not really plagiarism because it isn’t stealing. These creative people (artists, writers, etc) “make the familiar strange.” They add in the twist I mentioned.

This is where it gets tricky. Lethem mentions people like the Disney corporation cry when their “property” gets ripped off. I feel Disney makes its movies by taking world stories that date back centuries and produces them for their own. Then Lethem writes that they get upset when other artists want to use their characters in another piece of work.  This licensing issue reminds me of my friend who works at a music publishing company in Los Angeles. She tells me that in order for a movie or commercial to use a song in their project, approval must be obtained from the song’s owners. Sometimes the song’s owners are multiple people and entities. In order for the song to be used, everyone that owns the song has to agree.

Maybe that’s where this ecstasy of influence comes into play. Lethem does mention when music artists sample other songs. Nowadays there is a way to track that, but before he mentions that people could only make the best imitation of another song.

The concept of imitation and the cliché “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” sums up Lethem’s essay for me. Since we live in a world that information travels so fast, one person comes up with an idea and it won’t be too far along that another person will borrow the idea and use it as their own.

I think the idea that Lethem explains is an interesting look at our society and how we think nowadays. Sometimes I sit in my Biology or Organic Chemistry class and feel so enlightened that I learned a new concept. Then as I reflect later, I trip out because these new concepts I learn have been discovered years ago and many more people have practiced them too!

It seems that our world is getting smaller as we invent new ideas and even remix them. I think it’s harder and harder to think of a truly new idea or create a new piece of art.  When I write my research papers, I lay out my ideas then use textual support to make my theory stronger. That’s where Lethem points out that “any text is woven entirely with citations, references, echoes, cultural languages, which cut across it through and through in a vast stereophony.” Maybe our ideas have never been our ideas. We have just gotten so mixed up in all the information we come across and we sincerely think it is our own.

I think people that try to maintain appreciation for the arts and sciences would best understand what Lethem says. Perhaps with this essay being published in Harper’s magazine in 2007 works well for his audience. Harper’s is a paper magazine with an online website where articles and essays about art, culture, and literature is available for the public. Creative people, the educated individuals, and the cultured folks are probably the target readers of this essay and even Harper’s.  They are most likely to want to know the origins of things they see and hear.

It was particularly interesting to me that Lethem actually used a lot of other people’s ideas to form this essay. Instead of citing the ideas and sources within the body of his essay, he exposed them in the conclusion of it. As I read the essay, I thought all his points were original. At the end, I could not believe how many things he borrowed.

It makes you be a little more conscious of what you think and where you got that idea.

The topic of the Exclusive Excerpt by Micah L. Sirify features the Age of Transparency. All the ends of our world are becoming more interactive through the use of transparency. People in every community are becoming more engaged in gathering, sharing, and using information for their advantages. Politicians, corporations, and the like are being leveraged against to do the right things because the public is able to see what goes on from information they can attain from online communities such as the Huffington Post and WikiLeaks.

The Huffington Post is a news source on the Internet. It features news from around the world, blogs, and videos. In sharing such information, it creates a community for people with Internet access to join together and share what is going on. That being said, I think the Exclusive Excerpt was published on the Huffington Post because the subject matter is based on how we are at a period of time that technology (such as the Internet) has changed our politics, knowledge, and communities.

WikiLeaks is not a Wiki because it is not a website that can be added to and edited by anyone that has access to Internet. It is a media organization powered by online reporters who receive data and information then release a news story to go along with the intelligence provided. I know this based on WikiLeaks’ About page. This is important because the information on featured on WikiLeaks exposes controversial and high-security sensitive topics. If an article is being written to expose a politician or a government policy, then it should be accurate and supported. If WikiLeaks was a Wiki, then the people who do damage control could fix the information in their favor. In order to make more people informed about our world, accurate transparency is needed.

The main point of Sifry is that we are currently in an age of transparency and it is not going away. Technologically, we are in position to connect with so many people and just as much information with very little effort. We are becoming a tighter knit global community with more people standing up to stir up change against politics and businesses who hide things from people they are supposed to be working for. His point in this excerpt makes a convincing case relative to the audience of the Huffington Post. He wisely reaches out to people that have access to Internet and are interested in changing the world and making a difference. I liked that by touching upon the technology and the issues of social and political change, readers (like myself) feel even more motivated to be aware, proactive, curious, and courageous. The one thing I did not like about Sifry’s argument was at the end of the excerpt. He advises readers about privacy on the Internet. I think it’s there to help remind people that although we are in the age where information is easily shared, we have to remember to protect what we don’t want out there. I didn’t like this part of his argument because I would imagine that readers of his work, WikiLeaks, and the Huffington Post would already be aware of such a thing.

Since Micah Sifry is a co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum and editor of its blog, techPresident.com, it appears he takes great interest in politics. Based on his websites and the information in his article, his focus is on how technology has affected politics. He seems very active in politics and reform. With his participation of sharing information and changing the face of politics, I think he is qualified to write about WikiLeaks, Assange, and this age of transparency.