I Am User Generated

I had the pleasure today to speak at Northern Voice 2009. I’m so grateful to the crew of volunteers that have been putting on this world class event for the past 5 years.

I shared some of my theories on Mash Media with a savvy and engaged crowd. The session was “hijacked” by some really interesting questions on copyright law. Seeing that I’m not a copyright lawyer I could only speak on my own personal views on the subject. Some of my own personal views were formed based on:

The Pirates Dilemma by Matt Mason

It makes a good point that we all violate copyright every time we sing Happy Birthday. Information is a two way street that is decentralized and democratized. Piracy allowed America to industrialize very quickly thanks to stealing patents. Thomas Edison was seen as a pirate for inventing the gramophone. Musicians feared Edison.

I sensed that same fear today when I presented some of my own personal theories on storytelling and art making. I was surprised to read that an attendee was scared of my views on copyright. Admittedly, saying “fuck copyright” was a little harsh on my part

RIP: A Remix Manifesto
“It’s beneficial to share ideas.” “Sharing is the nature of creation”

Lessig Remix
Creating, not consuming is the order of the day.

I had the pleasure today to speak at Northern Voice 2009. I’m so grateful to the crew of volunteers that have been putting on this world class event for the past 5 years.

I shared some of my theories on Mash Media with a savvy and engaged crowd. The session was “hijacked” by some really interesting questions on copyright law. Seeing that I’m not a copyright lawyer I could only speak on my own personal views on the subject. Some of my own personal views were formed based on:

The Pirates Dilemma by Matt Mason

It makes a good point that we all violate copyright every time we sing Happy Birthday. Information is a two way street that is decentralized and democratized. Piracy allowed America to industrialize very quickly thanks to stealing patents. Thomas Edison was seen as a pirate for inventing the gramophone. Musicians feared Edison.

I sensed that same fear today when I presented some of my own personal theories on storytelling and art making. I was surprised to read that an attendee was scared of my views on copyright. Admittedly, saying “fuck copyright” was a little harsh on my part.

RIP: A Remix Manifesto
“It’s beneficial to share ideas.” “Sharing is the nature of creation”

Lessig Remix
Creating, not consuming is the order of the day.

One of the most insightful Tweets I’ve heard comes from our buddy @kk who said that “Twitter is like being at a party where everyone is on cocaine… Everyone talks and no one listens.” Sad, but all too true. However, this not the reason I first got into Twitter. The reason I first got into Twitter was by following academics and entrepreneurs that I was interested in. Daily I could hear thoughts off the top of the minds of interesting and insightful people who were not publishing fully baked treatises but rather things they were pondering. This helped me to see the patterns in these thoughts and piece together my own knowledge from their musings. This in my mind is the power of Twitter. These Twitter thoughts lead to the creation of Minds on Twitter. Minds on Twitter is a simple site that aggregates all these insightful thoughts and musings. Who’s the one person you follow that consistently gets your mental gears turning? Suggest them to the site or send a @tweetminds tweet to get your inspirational person added to Minds on Twitter. Hopefully you find this a useful addition to the Twittersphere and not just that coked out dude in the Internet memesphere. Hopefully with Rappers on Twitter this is the start to collaboratively building the Alltop for Twitter using only Tweets.

Two of my heroes appeared together on the Colbert Show to comically speak about a very serious issue. Copyright lawyer Lawrence Lessig joined Stephen Colbert to promote his new book: Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in a Hybrid Economy. Just as RiP: A Remix Manifesto alluded to, we are turning children into criminals with our copyright laws. Lessig takes it one step further and points out that in ten years we haven’t gain any ground in moving this issue further. Remixing is the building blocks of creativity.
Here’s the interview and of course, the remix of the interview.

I haven’t been this excited about a new release of a documentary since I was studying at NYU and heard about The Kid Stays in the Picture. RiP: A Remix Manifesto is “The film, billed as the world’s first open source documentary, analyzes the current strain of creative borrowing and capitalization with the help of Cory Doctorow, Lawrence Lessig, Gilberto Gil and more.”

I learned of the documentary from a Wired article on Gregg Gilles aka Girl Talk who’s party mash-up music has yet again brought the music copyright law issue to the fore much like De La Soul’s sample based hip hip tracks did in the early 90s. In the Wired interview Girl Talk speaks insightfully on the changing face of media sharing and copyright law.

“Not much has changed with the legislation, but I think the mass mentality has definitely shifted.”
“People are more directly interactive with what they consume”

One of my own personal life goals is help this interaction. I personally feel that this is the future of media storytelling. We must not just consume anymore. Consumers must have easy access to produce, remix, mashup and/or subvert the media. I’m heartened that Girl Talk is raising the collective game of the mash up and feels that “The tools to remix music and videos will become easier to use and more widely available.”