Media Studies Class Visits: Andrew Kilgour and Don Hogarth

Before the visits from Don Hogarth and Andrew Kilgour, I had a set view on music, art, piracy, and copyright. I enjoy listening to music and seeing art that are original. In my opinion, remixing songs and sampling songs still has an original aspect to it. Seeing as the remixer or sampler has thought of the remix first, (even though it was original before) it still can be called original in my views.

In terms of piracy and copyright, I believe that it is bad to illegally download songs, but if someone is willing to take the chance and risk of being caught and charged, they can go ahead. I guess I feel for both sides of this story. I understand the point that you could get the song for free, and why would you not want to? Yet I also understand that this illegal download takes money away from the original artist and does not help the music industry. This is why I believe that people should be allowed to take the risk to download these songs if they feel the need to.

After the visits from Don Hogarth and Andrew Kilgour, my opinion on this matter has not changed. My view still stands that although piracy is a bad decision, people may take the risk of downloading the illegal file(s) as long as they know what they are getting themselves into. If somebody did not know about the tough copyright laws, then it would be a bad decision for them to download an illegal file.

Don Hogarth had many strong points about piracy and copyright. Mr. Hogarth had a very down-to-Earth view on this matter. He knew that people download songs, but he had wanted to have everybody know what they could get themselves into. If there were no copyright laws, there would be no motivation to create original music or art. Yet Mr. Hogarth knows that some people believed in no copyright laws and people would continue to illegally download files after his visit.

Andrew Kilgour had also came in with great points about the piracy world. Mr. Kilgour talked about how he knew what he does is against copyright laws. Mr. Kilgour was able to understand both sides of the story in his situation, which was very interesting.

Both Don Hogarth and Andrew Kilgour had thought that both sides of this matter were valid. They had both seemed to understand the other side opinion yet they had leaned more towards their industry. I believe in both opinions yet I think that somebody who is illegally downloading files should know the risks and consequences of what they are doing.

The Yes Men Fix the World

“The Yes Men Fix the World” is a documentary created by Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno (The Yes Men) to showcase their over the top adventures of using the media to convey a message to the people. These adventures expose the truth of big companies accidents or faults. Bichlbaum and Bonanno use and manipulate the media to have the truth about these companies shown. This film was shot and edited in a chronological order and showed the acts of Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno over time. Because of this particular structure, the film is well conveyed and the point of the film is brought to attention by following the thoughts and processing to Bichlbaum and Bonanno’s large plans.

This documentary would be considered an observational documentary with aspects of an expository documentary. The film would be observational because the viewer follows Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno around which would be called the “fly on the wall” effect. The viewer is able to see the situation as if they were following around Bichlbaum and Bonanno. The elements of an expository documentary come in because the film almost tells the viewer how they should feel about the situation. The film was biased in the sense that the film had only taken opinions from people who had agreed with The Yes Men’s opinions. Never was there an opinion from the companies that the film was based on. The perspective of the film was through the lives of The Yes Men and showed their personal opinions and followed their travels.

The film “The Yes Men Fix the World” some great strengths. One of these strengths would have to be that this film clearly shows the public what these large companies are doing and how they are obviously not doing the right things. Secondly, The Yes Men show the public what kind of world we could live in. By doing this, people begin to question why we do not live in such a magnificent world that The Yes Men create. One scene that is very thought provoking was closer to the end of the movie where The Yes Men had printed their own version of the New York Times and distributed this paper throughout New York. The Yes Men had used the media to get their message out to the public. They knew that if they were to release that newspaper, they would just have to sit back and relax and watch the media create the story to be so big.

A film like “The Yes Men Fix the World” has a great value in our culture. There are many positive and negative outcomes from a film like this. An example of a positive outcome is that people are able to recognize the horrible things these companies are doing. People also begin to see the world that they could be living in and begin to question why they do not live in such a world, which would be another positive outcome. A negative outcome of a film like this would be that it gives some people false hope. An example of this is when the people who were effected by the chemical explosion. They had believed that they were finally going to receive help, but then were quickly told it was a lie and the statement was false. Overall, this movie conveyed a great message and should be seen by everybody.

"We Live in Public" Blog Review

"We Live in Public" is a amazing documentary directed by Ondi Timoner that follows Josh Harris, a revolutionary artist through his days of his conceptual art. Josh Harris was one of the pioneers of online interacting with his website Pseudo.com. Josh had an idea of where this social interacting over the internet was going, and he had wanted to show everyone. Josh then created his project "We Live in Public" to describe the upcoming ways of life that he saw. For this project, Josh had put about 100 people in a few rooms and bunk beds for a whole month, without being able to get out. While these people were in these rooms, there were always cameras on them, allowing no privacy to anybody. The point that Ondi Timoner and Josh Harris were trying to convey was that we are heading into a world where we will always be seen and we are not able to stop it. The project "We Live in Public" ended up really showing and describing the type of world we are heading into with cameras almost everywhere and having no privacy and worked with the point of the film. Josh moved onto another "We Live in Public" project with his girlfriend in his own house later, which did not end well. The film was chronological, seeing as Ondi Timoner had followed around Josh Harris and had organized the film to show what Josh was doing over time.

This film was an expository documentary, yet showed some points of an observational documentary. The reason for it being an expository documentary were for a few reasons. One reason was that there was a "voice of god" coming from Ondi Timoner throughout the film to help the viewer better understand what was going on. The film tried to persuade the viewer into believing that this is the kind of life that they will live in, with no privacy and always being watched. There was also some archival footage in the documentary. For example, when the documentary showed newscasts of Pseudo. The documentary was observational in some ways to. One aspect that the documentary showed that gave it this part observational documentary was that the camera acts as a bystander at points. For example. the camera acts as a bystander when filming the first "We Live in Public" project. The perspective of the film was a bit biased because they never had any opinions from somebody other than people related to the "We Live in Public" project.

Overall, I believed that this film was great. One of the strengths that made this film amazing was that Ondi Timoner was able to make the viewer feel for Josh Harris. When Josh was mad, sad, or happy, the viewer also felt this way. One other strength of the film was that Ondi Timoner had the skills to film this documentary very well and was able to put in the parts of the film that would keep people interested and wanting to know more about Josh's ideas. One scene that I found effective in this film was when Josh and his girlfriend were living in the house together with the cameras always watching. It gave people a sense of how Josh would see the future, with no privacy and always being watched. One other scene that was effective was the montages of the life inside Josh's project "We Live in Public".

A film like "We Live in Public" has great value in our culture today. It outright tells us what type of world we are living in and where the world is headed. With a film like this, it does have some positive and negative outcomes. A positive outcome is that people will realize that where the world is headed with privacy and will be aware of it. A negative outcome of this film is that people would probably not feel too comfortable with where their privacy is headed, and they now know that they are not able to change it. This film does make a statement because it shows us what will happen with privacy and that people better be alright with it, because it will most likely not change.

RiP!: A Remix Manifesto

Brett Gaylor, a Canadian filmmaker, had set out to inform people of an uprising issue with technology today, the question of copyright. Gaylor has created his documentary "RiP!: A Remix Manifesto" to not only display important information on the topic of copyright, but to prove show his message to others. To be able to do this, Brett Gaylor had followed Gregg Gillis, also known as Girl Talk, who is a mashup DJ. Gregg Gillis creates new songs out of many old ones, causing many cases of copyright infringement. Although Gillis is taking these songs, it is questioned whether the new material is still a creative and unique piece of art. Brett Gaylor travels to meet many people in the film to prove his four main points, showing this film is in a non-sequential order.

"RiP!: A Remix Manifesto" is a great example of an expository documentary yet shows some examples of a reflexive documentary. This film is an expository documentary because of the specific ways that Brett Gaylor had made the film. Brett Gaylor had followed around Girl Talk for most of the film while having a narrator throughout the film. The narrator would tell you about general information on the documentary almost all the time, which helped the viewer understand Gaylor's points an opinions. Gaylor had also structured this documentary like an essay, starting with an introduction, then providing his four main points of:
1) Culture always builds on the past
2) The past always tries to control the future
3) Our future is becoming less free
4) To build free societies you must limit the control of the past
Not only does Brett Gaylor clearly present these points, but he does a very great job on elaborating on these points. The documentary shows qualities of reflexive documentaries too. One example of this is that Brett Gaylor is in the film and interviews people, so you are able to see him. Gaylor also talks about the creation of the film which shows the second example of a reflexive film. In one section of the film, a quality of a reflexive documentary is shown again when Gaylor is showing people the actual film of Girl Talk.

Overall I really enjoyed watching the film. I thought the film was very interesting, seeing as I have listened to Girl Talk for quite some time now. A strength of the film that I found was that Brett Gaylor presented the topics of the film very well. They were easily identifiable and he was able to present much more information and opinions on the topics. I found that the scene where it presented some copyright infringement problems in the past was very effective in showing where copyrights had started and how the progressed and changed. I found that when Gaylor was discussing the amount of money Girl Talk would have to pay for each song was a very effective way to show how illegal Girl Talk's songs are.

I was not able to find many weaknesses in the film because I had enjoyed the film. I had a problem with the filming sometimes, because I would notice that whoever was filming would zoom into random and unnecessary places. I found one time that someone was speaking, and the camera was zoomed into the speakers neck. One other weakness I found was that the documentary was very biased seeing as it was coming from a man who does not really enjoy copyrights. Although it is hard to not be biased in a film like this, it could have been improved if the creator had an unbiased opinion. Brett Gaylor presented this documentary in a very great way, and was able to prove the points of A Remix Manifesto well.

Copyright Infringement Case Study: Raiders of the Lost Ark - Paramount Pictures and Richard Zambito

Richard Zambito, a screenwriter, had wrote a screenplay named "Black Rainbow" before Paramount Pictures had released the classic Indiana Jones film "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in 1981. Zambito had claimed that Paramount Pictures had stolen the concept of "Raiders the Lost Ark" from Zambito's "Black Rainbow" screenplay. Richard Zambito had decided to then sue Paramount Pictures for copyright infringement because Zambito had felt that some of the scenes from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" were the same as his screenplay "Black Rainbow". Mr. Zambito has said that "Black Rainbow" is about archeologists searching for treasure in Peru, close to the concept of "Raiders of the Lost Ark". The court had disagreed with Zambito and said that the screenplay was "a somber, vulgar script replete with overt sexual scenes, cocaine smuggling and cold-blooded killing." Whereas "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was an action-packed adventure with the classic character, Indiana Jones. These two descriptions could be somewhat alike, but they clearly do not have the exact same concept. The court had decided that Richard Zambito's screenplay was not close enough to the story of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and Zambito had lost the case.

One of the main reasons Zambito had lost the case was that the American copyright law does not protect the concept of "Scènes à Faire". Scènes à Faire is French for "scenes to be made". This means that the court had decided that because the screenplay was only a screenplay rather than a film, they were not able to really understand the full picture of the screenplay, resulting in Richard Zambito to not have enough evidence to support his case. The court had thought that the screenplay had just been another kind of action adventure movie where the characters were both looking for treasure. Because both the movie and screenplay were in the same genre, Mr. Zambito was not able to prove this copyright infringement from the telling that his screenplay was going to look just like scenes from "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

This type of copyright infringement falls under many different sections, but mainly relates to The Canadian Copyright Act: Copyright and Moral Rights in Works. Specifically, the subsection relating to this case would be "(1) (d) in the case of a literary, dramatic or musical work, to make any sound recording, cinematograph film or other contrivance by means of which the work may be mechanically reproduced or performed." This is because the screenplay "Black Rainbow" was in works to become a movie showing that it was still being worked on. Because Paramount Pictures is such a large company, under this copyright infringement section, it would have been an almost impossible task for Richard Zambito to win the case.

From this trial, I believe the outcome was somewhat fair. I believe the outcome was fair because Richard Zambino's screenplay was just like any other action adventure movie and could have been tried against more films in the genre. I also believe it was fair that the court had said that a part of the problem was that the American law system does not support Scènes à Faire, resulting in the court not knowing the exact details of the screenplay such as visual aspects. I believe this case was not too fair because Richard Zambito had tried to sue such a large company that it was almost impossible to win the case. This is because Paramount Pictures would have the top lawyers and be able to easily defend itself. Yet I do believe it was not a smart decision for Zambito to even try and sue such a large company, especially with the lack of evidence he had for his side of the case. This case can show the public that you would need much more evidence than just your screenplay to try and sue such a large company such as Paramount Pictures for copyright infringement.


Here is the trailer for the action adventure film: Raiders of the Lost Ark




Here is the link to the case:
http://www.benedict.com/Visual/Raiders/Raiders.aspx