Lawrence Lessig, author of Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, talks a lot about copyright laws and the importance of "amateur" creativity throughout the introduction, highlighting also the difference between RW and RO culture. I think Lessig's key argument in the introduction is that copyright laws are a little to strict because they are regulating amateur creativity and preventing a RW culture. To portray this argument, Lessig showcases several examples of amateur creativity that have been slapped with lawsuits. For example, he discusses a video of a thirteen-month old dancing to a Prince song. The child's mother showed the video to several of her family members and friends and before she knew it, she was contacted by lawyers at Universal. It's amazing to me that Universal insisted that sharing this home movie was willful copyright infringement. In no way was this video taking profits away from Prince. But the elite didn't care. They threatened the mother with a federal lawsuit and I think that is just absolutely ridiculous.
RW stands for Read/Write and RO stands for Read/Only. In a RW culture, citizens read their culture by listening to it or by reading representations of it and then add to it as they go (Lessig 28). According to Lessig, they "add to the culture they read by creating and re-creating the culture around them" (28). In a RO culture, citizens still read their culture by listening to it or by reading representations of it, but they do not add to it. Lessig says a RO culture is "less practiced in performance, or amateur creativity, and more comfortable (think:couch) with simple consumption" (28).
Lessig uses Sousa because he was one of the first to fight copyright laws and feared a RO culture. Sousa believed that machines would lead us to an RO culture, but instead technology is leading us to a RW culture. I think Sousa's argument is really interesting and he fought copyright laws because he wanted amateur creativity to continue. A RO culture is much less interesting then a RW culture and I do believe that the elite would rather have a RO culture, but because of guys like Sousa and Lessig and technology, I think we will continue to head towards a RW culture.
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ReplyDeleteGreat post. You do a good job summarizing his key points while including direct references to the text. Thanks.