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Reflection #2.

In today’s world, the excess of media and creative work that circulates the Internet makes it impossible to determine what is fair use of material that has been created by someone. Fortunately, the fair use reasoning process sets clear legal boundaries regarding the use and transformation of material that is copyrighted. In project 1, along with many similar projects I have created throughout my career in school, almost all of the works are copyrighted. Despite this, the creators cannot take legal action because the photos do not violate copyright laws. The fair use act allows individuals to use previous, copyrighted material in their own original work, as long as several parameters are followed. The individual must use the work in a way that makes it different from the original intent of the work, or in a way that benefits society, like education for example. Also, the work must be transformed and cannot be in competition with the same market that the original creative work is in.

Because my project is intended to educate the class on the purpose and use of photos today, I am legally allowed to transform and use copyrighted material in my own presentation. The intent of reusing the material is not to make any competition for the original creator in his market.

//What is a remix?// It's hard to think of the term remix as technical. The first thing that comes to mind for me is when an electronic music artist takes an existing song and applies heavy edits to do anything from completely change the song to simply making a small adjustment. I would define remix as 'any level of alteration of an existing creative work by the original creator or a different individual'. Therefore, a remix could extend not only from music, but to other forms of media such as film, print, and interactive media. It seems hardly normal to refer to a photo edit as a remix; equally odd enough to remix a film. In these cases, an 'edit' is often used as the main term, like a photo edit or film edit. All this talk of mixing makes me think of sauce. A lot of elements go into the mixture.

In broader terms, i have remixed media for years between film and audio. When i was younger, i would mix music CD's, therefore rearranging the album order and changing the song, or mixing it. I would also record gameplay in video games or movie footage and edit it to music, creating music videos featuring my favorite entertainment. Currently, remixing media now would most likely be in the audio field for me. Working on a band demo, i have gone back to alter audio levels in tracks i previously made. In addition, we have taken songs like Stir it Up and covered them, recording each instrument part by part and adding effects (here is the completed track: http://soundcloud.com/theseeker17/sunfish-stir-it-up). This recording is far from exactly the same as the original, so according to my definition it would be a remix of the original track.