Plunderphonics

           
       Our digital world today gives us access to an incredible amount of information. We are in an age where if something is posted on the net.....then it is a free for all. Meaning that I can pretty much access anyone’s art (that is image, noise, song or video production), remix it and call it my own.  In the art world this access has developed what some would call an underground art movement. All new types of art have developed through the use of existing art. Craig Baldwin touches on a few artists who remix existing media into their own form in his video Sonic Outlaws. This type of art has its issues though.... copyright laws. In the video Baldwin interviews Negativland a band who at the time was under lawsuit with U2s record company (SST) for using and printing the letter U and the number 2 on their album cover with a U2 spy plane on it. The issue was over people buying Negativlands album because they though it was a new U2 album. When in reality it is just Negativlands album cover art, they were not trying to pose as U2.
          Negativland is a band that plunder phonics. They use existing media to create their own form of art or media. I think the copyright issues have come up because when artists see or hear what they already created but remixed, they feel offended. As if the remixer should not be getting credit for something the original artist made. On the other side though people who create this type of art have worked hard to create something original of what already was, so they see it as a completely new piece that has developed. Both sides are hard to argue because I feel as if someone took a piece of art I developed and used bits and pieces of it to create something new. I would feel as though that person is a copycat who could not develop their own art or ideas. At the same time though when one puts something out there for the world to see…you can’t expect for it not to be copied in some way or form.
      The internet has brought us to this luxury access of others works. Another art form that also deals with the same type of issues is “culture jamming”. Wikipedia defines culture jamming "as a tactic in which an activist attempts to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions of corporate advertising. It is usually employed in opposition to a perceived appropriation of public space, or as a reaction against social conformity." In the video Baldwin shows culture jamming such as people who change billboards to represent there point of view on the topic at hand. There is also a group called the BLA (Barbie liberation association) who take Barbie dolls and GI JOE dolls and switch there voice boxes. This movement I thought was hilarious because when little kids get these types of toys they already know what the doll is suppose to say. So when a GI JOE doll blurts out he wants to go shopping in Barbie voice the kid is freaked.
     It seems as though the issues with copy rights and these artists is hard to argue. I would say before the birth of the internet original artists could have held there ground on copy rights and the ownership of their work. In this day and age though it is hard to argue. Art is replicated to easily and is accessed so easily that it is hard to say if someone has rights over their work if it is on the internet. To an extent yes an original artist does have rights, but yet again at the same time when you put something out there for other people to access, you can't expect it not to be used in some way or form.Everything in our world is taken from something else. It is part of the cycle of evolution.