This video on youtube...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs1bG6BIYlo&feature=player_embedded
is an awesome remixed beat with a Disney Classic in the video, we all can recognize "Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs". So the question that comes up, is this copyright infringement. This video takes the voices and actions and remixes them to turn it into something completely different. This could easily be concieved as copyright infringment because he is taking Disney's work and remixing it. Essentially these are still Disney characters even though this is not how they would appear in a Disney video. This guy has done a few remixes before and has had them taken down, if you read some comments, because it is copyright infringement. The remix is very good and I am not saying this to take away from it. I am just using this as a classic example, this is his own work, he clearly worked very hard on this. However, this is nothing more than stealing, what he is doing is no better than someone putting another title on a movie and trying to pass it as his own. No matter what the sound or remix is, this is still "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", and that is Disney's property.
I think this issue is really similar to the issue of Girltalk where he remixes music that wasn't created by himself. The creator of this video remixed and mashed up the origional to creating something completely new and different, except he used one source, Snow White. The beats, the flow and the melody to this song was created origionally by him which he could get credit to but the fact that he took something that has been copyrighted puts him in copyright infringement.
ReplyDeleteI totally stumbled across this video the other day and instantly thought of this class! And though generally not a fan of remixes, I was really impressed with this artist's work. I have to disagree with your claim that Pogo's remix is equivalent to someone retitling a film and calling for credit. His song "Wishery" is more of an artistic homage to Disney's masterpiece than an attempt at ideological theft. What Pogo is doing here is what visual artists have already done almost a hundred years ago: Taking something familiar and making it new.
ReplyDeleteFood for Thought: Why is it Disney's property when Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a folk tale popularized by the Brothers Grimm?
ReplyDelete(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_Grimm)
Sometimes speaking about intellectual property in absolutes is problematic, to say the least...
MB Ray - this is Disney's property because the video is culled from Disney's version. When Disney came out with SW, I assume that they payed royalties and licensed it (via copy right from the Brothers Grimm)- they obeyed the law (at least, I hope that they did). The version that he used is Disney's video and creation (that Disney created legally).
ReplyDeleteSo in a sense, he may be violating Disney's copyrights as well as Brothers Grimm for the source idea.