When you take a moment to think of your favourite song, and where it came from, chances are some component of that song came from another song. Today we are living in a free file-sharing and exchanging culture, with the phenomenon of remixes becoming more and more prominent. If you search “remixes” in youtube the results are endless because it is becoming increasingly less-complex to take riffs, lines etc from various songs and create a whole new song.
But isn’t this just stealing? Well not exactly. This is due to the open file-sharing network available to us. There such websites which allow this sharing as Pirate Bay and Napster which allow the creators of media to opening share their work without the constraints of copyright laws. There is also the concept of “produsers” which is the idea that we as active participants in file-sharing are both users and producers of shared content. Axel Bruns describes these ideas in his article in which he outlines justifies the purpose of produsers and produsage: “the networks are open to participation by anyone with the necessary client software, and are designed to be more efficient at distributing content the more clients are connected and help share content” which makes sense when you think about it, because when push comes to shove, all we really want is to be able to freely access media and in the same respect, those who create some form of media, might also appreciate seeing their work being modified, altered and shared to create a completely new piece of work.
Word.
So, in a way, remixng and mashups and all that jazz, is just a way for an individual produser to share files with others who have the same interests and share the same attitudes towards produsaage, nothing wrong with that is there?
Aiyana Levin 