Remix

Remix is a book written by Lawrence Leesig which discusses the effects of the internet. He writes about how the copyright laws of today seem outdated and unfit to deal with the way the internet changes culture and creativity. He states that every time “you use a creative work in a digital context, the technology is making a copy”.  Leesig claims that what reading and writing used to be for past generations, has now transitioned into knowing and manipulating multi-media technologies as they become more saturated within society and it becomes the new “literacy”. He also claims that people growing up in this generation will be committing crimes they do not know are illegal because those are the norms they will grow up around. Early on he gives an example of this where a mother, Stephanie Lenz posts up a video on YouTube of her child dancing to a song by Prince, only to later have that video removed and gets sued by Universal Music Group because the video contained an unauthorized performance of the artist Prince.

This sort of thing happens all the time today. Companies like
YouTube are deluged with demands to remove material from their
systems. No doubt a signifi cant portion of those demands are fair
and justifi ed. If you’re Viacom, funding a new television series with
high- priced ads, it is perfectly understandable that when a perfect
copy of the latest episode is made available on YouTube, you would
be keen to have it taken down. Copyright law gives Viacom that
power by giving it a quick and inexpensive way to get the YouTube’s
of the world to help it protect its rights.

As time goes on and new technologies and media come about, I believe it will become increasingly difficult for entertainment companies to keep their properties from the internet, but at the same time, there will be more lawsuits against those who unknowingly post, copy or view copyrighted material.