Quote:
Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer
Saying that remixers are uncreative want-to-bes is as wrong as it is snobbish. There's no lack of creativity in taking a classic tale, and giving it a modern retelling or involving characters in new adventures. How many modern classics are based on the works of Shakespeare, or owe something to the brothers Grimm?
You also posit a fantasy version of creativity that involves fresh ideas popping fully formed from the heads of creators, when creators are always influenced in subtle and not so subtle ways by the works of others. We're all want to bes to one extent or another.
Over here is a fun video that describes some of the remixing George Lucas used in creating Star Wars. No one claim that Lucas "copied" the works of others, but it's obvious from the video, and interviews Lucas has given, how much he owes to the scifi movies of his youth. |
Perhaps I was perhaps being a bit of a snotrag. I should have said derivative work instead of remix. I stupidly thought remix was more of a cut and pasting thing.
And of course almost everything has been said and done before.
The point is was trying to make was that there are numerous authors who manage to produce material that does not violate copyright, and numerous others who use copyrighted characters such as Sherlock Holmes and pay the fee to the rights holders.
And to state what I put so poorly in another way, the people who I referred to as want to bes are the many who cannot create a work without borrowing so heavily from another work that they would be violating copyright.
Lots of people have paid to use the name Sherlock Holmes in some pretty good books that do not draw heavily on the original books. And lots of heavily derivative works are pretty good as well. I just do not see that society has benefitted greatly from these books good as they are, never mind from the almost direct copies and clones that would emerge if copyright was done away with or shortened significantly.
Too many Twilight clones already IMO but perhaps you think differently?
Helen