RIP: A Remix Manifesto

This week in class, we watched a documentary called "RIP: A Remix Manifesto" This film was about the laws of copyright, and how people of America and all over the world misuse and abuse the law. The film started off by talking about a music domain, named Napster, that allowed anyone to get any song. Once the government found out about this, they shut it down. Next the documentary talked about an artist named "Girl Talk". He is an artist who takes bits and pieces from many different songs, slows them or speeds them up, adds a beat, and by trial and error creates music this way. The thing with this is that he takes bits and pieces from copyrighted songs, which therefore makes his music illegal. Although he has a nationwide fan base, his music is illegal. One way he can make it legal is by paying his dues, which would amount to close to, or more than $400,000 per song. There really is no solution to the problem, as long as artists like "Girl Talk" aren't making albums. The copyright agencies' policies are out of date, and if they want to prevent people from downloading music or making songs that should cost $400,000, they need to update their policies.