Review of "Remix" by Lawrence Lessig

Last month I was browsing a featured table at Indigo, and a book with a slick cover jumped out at me. It's called Remix by Lawrence Lessig, and even though i'm not a fanatic reader, I am familiar with Lessig's work so I bought it quite swiftly. I'd like to share a few of my thoughts on the book. Originally I would've liked to have written a thorough analysis of it, but if I did that he would probably release his next book in the time it would take me to prepare it. So without further ado, let me discuss what I think of this polemic.

A little background on who Lawrence Lessig is: he's a law professor at Stanford, but he's most well known for his work in popularizing Creative Commons and various subgroups. CC is a movement which aims to liberate art and other forms of Intellectual Property by allowing the creators of the work to assign a more flexible copyright. This can do anything from making the user of the work free to modify or remix it, free to share it with friends, all the way up to making it free to resell. I've been on-the-fence with these issues since I became familiar with them years ago, and this book helped stir my unrest even more.

"Remix" is an essay of sorts, but also a call to action. Throughout the book, the author reveals a case for why art and science should be more liberalized, and more importantly, why the entertainment industry should decriminilize the unauthorized sharing of its works, including the area of reusing works(sampling).

His biggest example of how freeing up copyright can work, is in the computer software industry, where programs are created all the time in the realm of "Open Source" and this has enabled all types of new technologies to exist, without any cost to the user. The biggest example of this is the Linux operation system.

However I think Lessig spends far too much time speaking of the software industry. It's a huge chunk of the book, and pretty much put me to sleep as I waddled through it like a fat pengiun. I feel that the problems in the music and film industry at the moment are far more complex than being able to say, "well it worked in the other industry, it should work here". Some aspects of freeing up art will benefit the industries, but not save its ass.

We can all agree that clamping down on file sharing has been a huge waste of resources for the past few years, to the point that the major labels and distributors could've spent this time developing new business models and technologies. I think that Lessig takes this a little far though. He repeatedly mentions the idea that he doesn't want his kids to grow up feeling like they're pirates and thieves. And his tone on this issue is very sappy, to the point of mentioning that there's a war going on and we have to worry about copyright infringement. It's like telling the parking ticket officer that his work is silly because there's a major crime ring that needs to be dismantled.

Well I don't care if technology has made it real easy to grab music and movies without paying, don't try to paint this any other way. If you drink from my milkshake, and I didn't let you put your straw in my drink, you are stealing from me! Why does he want to modify the law to make this ok? He discusses the idea that there are good alternatives to prosecuting, and while I agree on this, I don't think he gives enough examples of how we can reform, and actually sustain the industry so that young people can afford to devote all their time to creating new work.

He also mentions the work of Girl Talk and how sampling law is out of date because his music is fantastic but comes from other songs. Again, while I agree there has to be a better way, I don't think we should be allowed to sample freely if the original creator didn't allow us to. Girl Talk's project would be legitimate in say ten years if all the pop artists of today assign a more flexible copyright to their work. Thankfully he hasn't gotten any lawsuits on his new album though.

I guess this all boils down to my frustration with how society has changed in the past few years. Just because we have Blackberries, why is it ok to become socially inept and sit on the Internet when people have chosen to spend their time with you? Just because I can download an album in 30 seconds on the right site, why is it ok? We are becoming very stubborn and selfish as a people.

I'd also like to mention that copyright law as it exists in its cold and harsh manner, actually makes all this more fun. Isn't it more of a rush to shoplift and get chased out of the store than it is to be able to freely take it? I think the challenge of working around an outdated legal society is more exciting than trying to reform it sometimes. The people who can manipulate this the most will find the greatest excitement while not getting caught, which could take us back to the Girl Talk example.

If I was allowed to sample any track I wanted to, I don't think it would be as fun as it is now. And I guess that's a good reason right there for reform in this area - if people were allowed to sample, it wouldn't be as exciting and therefore people would devote more energy to creating the most original sounds ever, as they would be bored of repurposing old content. If you legalized various narcotics, maybe people would start searching for something new, and embrace things like yoga and voodoo more often?

Additionally, if you're still awake reading this, I think that freeing up your content can go a little too far at times. K-OS, the Canadian rapper and musician, recently announced that the parts from every track on his album are available for remixing in the form of a contest. The album isn't even released yet, but anyone can download the separated parts and go to town with them. While this will do a good job of promoting his album, I think it's a little pathetic. How much do you value your work if you are going to let anyone modify it before it's even released? The site that it was released on even has a Flash application which helps you sequence the parts, so no skill is required. I like remix contests, but I think this is a desperate experiment in the hopes of selling a few extra copies.

So while I feel that this essay by Professor Lessig comes across as a little sappy at times, overall I think it did a great job at getting people such as myself to think about the issues more closely. He is also good at not being totally biased on many of his arguments, often giving a bit of the other side.

I will surely take into account some of his propositions with my own work. While I don't believe that Creative Commons is the best solution for certain projects(because it assigns a permanently modified copyright to your work that you can't reneg on), I do believe that we all can think of new ways to share our work and not come down so hard on people who break the law. This mindset is a very important consideration for the next generation of creators and consumers, and that's what the author has aimed to impart in writing this project.

In my opinion, if Lessig cut a bit of repetitive text about the Open Source software industry out of the book, and maybe shaved off about fifty to one hundred pages or so of other fluff content, I think he has a real winner on his hands.

I would recommend this book to any musician, filmmaker, or other artists, as well as to anyone who is interested in copyright law. But for the average person this book might be a little much. 7/10

Mr. Tunes

Live Looping, Garage Producing

Review of "Remix" by Lawrence Lessig