Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy was written by Lawrence Lessig in 2008, published by Penguin Press. Lawrence Lessig is currently the director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University, along with being a professor of law at Harvard Law School. He previously founded the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. He is known as a political activist, and has much influence on reduced legal restrictions, such as copyright and trademark.
Lawrence Lessig
Source: OBEY
This following book is about the effect that Internet has on society and consumption and production of pop culture. Part I focuses on our Internet culture from the past and what is to come in the future. He compares the Read-Only (RO) culture and the Read/Write (RW) culture. Lastly, he compares the different types of values that these cultures.
RO is defined as the “Read/Only” culture, in which consumption is simple and performance and creativity are not emphasized. RW is defined as the “Read/Write” culture, in which “ordinary citizens” listen or read representations of their culture, and continue by creating and re-creating this culture around them.
Lessig continues to speak about remixes among texts and media. It is quite obvious that the growing remixes in media have encountered issues with the “copyright wars”. Although there are many reasons to crack down on these issues of copyrighting, Lessig reminds us that this RW culture provides those talented people with a voice that can be heard to many.
In the last section of Part I, I was particularly interested in comparing the RO culture with RW culture. Specifically, I read especially closely to the paragraphs that focused on the differences in value, as in if these cultures are any good to our society. This section starts off by talking about Andrew Keen’s book The Cult of the Amateur. He states that:
“Not a day goes by without some new revelation that calls into question the reliability, accuracy, and truth of the information we get from the Internet” (90).
He continues to state that:
“Wikipedia, for example, ‘is almost single-handedly killing the traditional information business” (90).
I find these two statements to be very strong, yet valid. People are able to easily access sources that may or may not contain legitimate resources and research. Also, every person who has access to the Internet is also able to put their own information and “facts” for others to see. For example, Wikipedia allows almost anyone to post their input or data onto copious pages on this free encyclopedia. Much of this information may be valid or faulty, but many readers may not expect it because they are unaware of the “writers” who contribute to Wikipedia. But this is not the main issue at hand. Many independent bookstores and other libraries are going bankrupt and losing much of their business to these free encyclopedias.
I feel as though Lawrence Lessig’s argument towards RW culture is legitimate with his reasons. He has constantly been an advocate against restrictions on copyright and trademark, and making the RW culture prominent in our society will help our society to continue to grow.