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Remix
making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy
368 pages
An incisive, thought-provoking exploration of how digital culture is fighting back against restrictive corporate copyright.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like sitting in on a fascinating lecture by a deeply engaged legal scholar who truly understands internet culture. The pace is steady and analytical, yet the tone remains trenchant and accessible, grounding complex legal and economic arguments in relatable, sometimes absurd, real-world examples of corporate overreach. It cultivates an intellectual, provocative mood, asking readers to reconsider the boundaries between passive consumption and active, democratized creativity. The prose is sharp and persuasive, designed to make sense of the clash between old media megaliths and the dawning read-write digital era. It will delight readers who are passionate about digital rights, internet history, and the ongoing battle for creative freedom in a hybrid economy.
- Mood
- intellectual
- provocative
- thought-provoking
- Tone
- incisive
- argumentative
- critical
- analytical
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- democratization of creativity · corporate control vs free expression · evolution of digital culture · legal constraints on art
- The writing
- Incisive, trenchant, and accessible, blending legal analysis with relatable cultural examples.
- The arc
- Moves from a critical examination of restrictive corporate control to an optimistic vision of a thriving, democratized digital future.
- Who it's for
- Readers fascinated by internet culture, digital rights, and the intersection of law, economics, and creativity.
Content notes
- corporate overreach
About the book
From Publishers Weekly Should anyone besides libertarian hackers or record companies care about copyright in the online world? In this incisive treatise, Stanford law prof and Wired columnist Lessig (Free Culture) argues that we should. He frames the problem as a war between an old read-only culture, in which media megaliths sell copyrighted music and movies to passive consumers, and a dawning digital read-write culture, in which audiovisual products are freely downloaded and manipulated in an explosion of democratized creativity. Both cultures can thrive in a hybrid economy, he contends, pioneered by Web entities like YouTube. Lessig's critique of draconian copyright laws—highlighted by horror stories of entertainment conglomerates threatening tweens for putting up Harry Potter fan sites—is trenchant. (Why, he asks, should sampling music and movies be illegal when quoting texts is fine?) Lessig worries that too stringent copyright laws could stifle such remix masterpieces as a powerful doctored video showing George Bush and Tony Blair lip-synching the song Endless Love, or making scofflaws of America's youth by criminalizing their irrepressible downloading. We leave this (copyrighted) book feeling the stakes are pretty low, except for media corporations. (Oct. 20) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Description from Open Library.
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