Remix Culture

Remix Culture describes the emergence of cultural artifacts and processes created to include recombination of other works, enabled by the digitization of media, as well as the availability of knowledge about others’ creations provided by open global networks.



Wikipedia defines a remix as “an alternate mix of a song made using the techniques of audio editing…” Remix was a feature of recorded music long before “new media” appeared but has grown in importance because of the ease with which digital content can be remixed. We expand this definition to incorporate the contemporary practice of creating new cultural artifacts by remixing prior cultural elements to create something new.
 
Although remix has always been an aspect of human culture the phenomenon takes on more significance in the digital age, because of the ease with which a creator of a new cultural artifact can “steal” to use the term from Stravinsky’s observation that all composers steal and the great composers steal the most. Music, text and images are easily transferred from one digital device to another especially because of the Internet which allows this phenomenon to take place on a global scale.

Signals

• The rise of, and subsequent success of, hip-hop music from the 1980s to the present has relied in part on the creative re-use of sampling from other works, recombined in new ways to form new work. This has become a mainstay of both mainstream music in the 2000s, with the tools to create it increasingly easy to obtain and manage
• The mashup, a type of application, service or content made famous by the rise of Web 2.0 technologies, recombines other pieces of content, programming and experience to generate a new experience or capability

Implications

• Remix culture has encouraged openness as producers of remixed materials place their own creations back into the realm of public use. This has also driven growth of remix culture and created opportunities for new creative voices and entrepreneurship as more creators seek to leverage existing content to create new product
• The popularity of remix culture has driven a rethink of intellectual property frameworks. Lessig’s Creative Commons framework, which provides different levels of permission for remix and reuse of material, has become an established platform for managing rights in remix culture

Countertrends

Some countries and industries have taken steps to tighten intellectual property frameworks and aggressively pursue alleged copyright violators to slow loss of revenues and maintain control of content.

Extrapolations

Continued expansion of remix culture could radically alter intellectual property frameworks and mechanisms such as digital rights management in areas not yet touched by it as content protections in core media industries shift to accommodate further openness. Producers would have to look to new revenue sources as the ability to capture full “return” for created works would be weakened, as we are already seeing with some categories of content such as music and video.

Other Resources

http://www.henryjenkins.org/ — Blog of Dr Henry Jenkins, Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California and expert on convergence and fan culture.
http://aramsinnreich.typepad.com/ — Blog of Dr. Aram Sinnreich, author of “Mashed Up” and visiting professor at NYU’s department of Media, Communication and Culture.

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