Rip: A Remix Manifesto

In what is essentially the bizarre story of recent copyright law, director Brett Gaylor examines music, medicine and other copyrights to make an impassioned plea for the reintroduction of free speech and ‘fair use’ in all areas of culture. His film, as funky as it is arresting, uncovers some disturbing truths – Disney Corporation’s successful lobbying of the US Congress to tighten copyright substantially, the rapid centralisation of all copyright ownership, andthe dizzying breadth of contemporary copyright (even <em>Happy Birthday</em> is ‘owned’).

He contends that, for culture to progress, society must be able to develop that which already exists. With corporations’ fingers in all pies, will ideas be determined by the public domain or private corporations? Central to his film is the advent of the remixers in music – those that ‘borrow’ only to create anew and who are, under the law, criminals. The film itself becomes a poster child for its own point – by being ‘remade’ by other filmmakers, Gaylor, illustrates his idea of building a 're-creative' culture, something that has always been, save for this century - when the lock up of ideas began.