Aye, piracy!

Mary Shelley once said in her introduction to Frankenstein:
"Every thing must have a beginning, to speak in Sanchean Phrase; and that beginning must be linked to something that went before. The Hindoos give the world an elephant to support it, but they make the elephant stand upon a tortoise. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself. In all matters of discovery and invention, even of those that appertain to the imagination, we are continually reminded of the story of Columbus and his egg. Invention consists in the capacity of seizing on the capabilities of a subject, and in the power of moulding and fashioning ideas suggested to it."

And that brings us to the "Remixer's Manifesto":

1. Culture always builds on the past
2. The past always tries to control the future
2. Our future is becoming less free
3. To build free societies you must limit the control of the past

The remixers are these guys, to put it simply, and strive to pry open the grip modern copyright has on a society built on the theory of freedom to express oneself by - what I think - whatever means necessary. Modern copyright laws have made a whole generation criminal because it (copyright and its owners) is losing control of its subjects and the money it makes from them. And I say modern because copyright has changed from insuring the growth of creativity and expression to allowing as much money that can be made go to the hands of those who choke creativity out of those except a rich few. As Shelly and the Remixer's Manifesto state, everything is built on something already there - a chaos and not a void. I build my information and sentences and paragraphs by the multiples of people before me who have also made strides in some area of thinking. Science is built from previous theories to form into better, more efficient methods. What is the difference between the scientist who builds on the sciences of his predecessors and the remixer who takes what others have created and create it into the an original piece. Perhaps we've so mutated our minds around the idea of owning property that we don't understand that ideas - "intellectual property" - can't be chained down because, if they are, the idea of progress ceases. If scientists could work past the idea of patents on one idea or theory, progress would exceed past the vices and avarice of a society and into one celebrated with brotherhood and mutual respect of creation and creativity. Medicines could be made speedily and treatments made available. If a generation was given a library of that done before them - to rip apart, reform, and put back together - what but good could come from the freedom of our expression?
We are nanos gigantum humeris insidentes - dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants.

The following is a video, courtesy of Hulu for the embedded full video, but mostly thanks to Brett Gaylor, who had a large hand in making the film RiP! A Remix Manifesto:


I encourage you, my internet readers, to look into Creative Commons and be one behind the movement of creativity. I've put a video or two of the creator of CC on this blog a while ago so I'll leave it up to your liberty and interest in the matter to click that link above you and watch it.

“As a writer, my problem is not piracy, it’s obscurity, and CC licenses turn my books into dandelion seeds, able to blow in the wind and find every crack in every sidewalk, sprouting up in unexpected places.” - Cory Doctorow

Your friend,
Alex