RiP: A Remix Manifesto

- Film Reel
- Media Savvy
RiP: A Remix Manifesto

April 28, 2009 • Michelle Schwartz

In January, I blogged about RiP: A Remix Manifesto, a movie aimed at criticizing international copyright law, a system that tramples art and innovation, and makes criminals of small children and old ladies. We live in a world where major corporations are declaring they “own” everything from rain forest plants to human DNA. In February, the Electronic Frontier Foundation began a protest of YouTube’s Fair Use Massacre, in which copyright owners (notably Warner Music Group) sent out takedown notices, threatening users who posted videos as innocent as teen girls practicing their piano and singing Christmas songs. Fair use has been gutted and major corporations are seizing “ownership” of our entire universe.

Join the remix revolution!

RiP: A Remix Manifesto has since been released, screened in theaters and available in its entirety on the Internet. Brett Gaylor, the filmmaker, still considers it a work in progress, open to being remixed by its audience. At the end of each chapter, Brett offers a prompt to viewers, asking fans to add everything from animation to soundtrack music. Grab material from Open Source Cinema and work your own magic! Art is meant to be shared, not owned.
- Tweet

Like what you're reading? Please consider joining The Hall of Shameless to help sustain this volunteer-run project.

Discuss this story

Shameless prides itself on the diversity of opinions expressed by our writers, and we encourage and appreciate different points of view. Our intention at Shameless is to foster community and to maintain a safe and positive blogging environment; we do not consider it our duty to give a voice to anybody with an opinion.

Discussion on this site is moderated. We will delete comments that:

use discriminatory language
use hate speech
attack our bloggers or other commenters
are inflammatory.

(We get to decide what's discriminatory, hateful, attacking, or inflammatory).

In some cases, we will cap off comments on a discussion when we feel they are spiralling out of control and fostering an unwelcoming space for bloggers and readers. Comments will be closed by the Web Editor, unless the post is by the Web Editor, in which case the Editor in Chief will close them.

If your comments repeatedly make the same point, they may be deleted. This also applies to comments made by multiple members of the same organization.

Your comments should be about the topic of the post, not its writer—although we certainly encourage praise for our writers, if you want to say something nice.

blog comments powered by Disqus

« Back to the front page

Law and Disorder

Also in this issue:

April 28, 2009 • Michelle Schwartz

Discuss this story