How New Digital Media Affect Appropriation

Baer

Rebekah Baer

2 May 2011

Film Seminar Final Paper

Appropriation is the act of taking something for one’s own use, typically without the owner’s permission, in order to create new works. However, appropriation is not stealing or directly copying. When people appropriate the moving image, it is usually for parody, spoofs, or fan culture media. Over the years, copying and editing technology has become easier and the public has more and more access to it. This affects appropriation by making it easier, giving the public more access to media, and giving the public the freedom to publish their appropriated works. Appropriation of the moving image has existed for almost a century, but digital culture has allowed the general public access causing an influx of amateur appropriation.

When users take clips of a movie and edit them or create a montage of existing works, this is appropriation. The original work is changed in some way. Creators can also incorporate stories or concepts of existing works into their own works. This appears mostly in fan fiction. For example, a user can create their own story that includes Star Wars characters, worlds, and guidelines, but is a separate story that they created, not George Lucas. This is usually referred to as fan fiction. If appropriation is adopting, borrowing, or recycling parts or a whole of someone else’s work, when does “borrowing” become stealing? Simply copying or imitating another’s work and then passing it off as your own are acts of plagiarism. And if the original medium is copyrighted, making money off of stealing the original is in violation of copyright law. However, copyright’s original intention was to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” Therefore, in order to continue to promote progress in the arts, the fair use doctrine, enacted by the Copyright Act of 1976, legally allows for appropriation and protects those adopting, borrowing, or recycling existing moving images in order to create their own. The fair use doctrine allows copying and distribution without permission of the copyright holder or payment to the copyright holder. The doctrine looks at the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantialness of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, and the effect of the use on the potential market, and the effect of the use on the value of the copyrighted work. These factors are vague and anyone can easily argue that their appropriated work is within these guidelines. This is how the public can make things such as Star Trek spoof and use copyrighted Star Trek clips in their fan media.

In the past, when one wanted to use a clip from a particular movie, they had to physically cut the film and insert it into their own film. Before digital technology, actual film had to be manipulated. In order to copy part of a film, the actual filmstrip would need to be used. And if one wanted to edit an original filmstrip, changing the actual strip was tedious and difficult. Not everyone could do this and specific, expensive technology that required a specific knowledge and skill set was required. The initial editing of all film was done using a positive copy of the film negative. The positive was used so that the editor could experiment as much as desired without destroying the original work. Editors had to physically cut and paste together pieces of film. They would use a splicer and then thread the film onto a machine with a viewer.

A form of appropriation that is apparent in film history, before digital technology, is montage. The word “montage” is French for “putting together” or “assembly.” The earliest example of this can be seen in Joseph Cornell’s “Rose Hobart.” The film is form 1936 and can be considered the first work of film appropriate. The film is randomly cut and reconstructed. Cornell took shots from the 1931 film East of Borneo, a melodrama set in the jungle. In Cornell’s appropriation, clips of the film’s main character, Rose Hobart, are set to Brazilian dance music. Most of the film contains reaction ...

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Now, the technology has given us the ability to copy and edit works much easier and faster. Instead of using a positive of the film and physically cutting and hot splicing filmstrips together, the negative can be digitally scanned into computers and then digitally edited. Simple editing technology such as final cut pro can be used for this. Today, since most recent moving images are recorded digitally and not on physical filmstrips, the scanning process can be bypassed altogether. Editing film has become more and more easy as time goes on. Editing has also become simpler, allowing the public to have access to it. Free editing programs are so simple to use and no specific skills or expensive equipment are required to edit or copy the moving image, giving the public greater ability to copy and edit film.

Technology also allows for easier publication and dissemination as well. Almost every film can be accessed via the internet. And, if you know how to get around the law, many can be downloaded for free. If you’re looking to appropriate existing material, digital copies of films are easy to get a hold of. Editing of moving images can also easily be done digitally. The many programs to edit films are free, simple to use, and usually come with some sort of tutorial program.

Not only is editing easier than it was in the past, but getting your newly appropriated material out into the world is also easier. In the past, once you made a film, you would need to have it shown in an independent theatre in order for it to get viewed. Film exhibition on our own was not easy. You could try to sell your appropriated film reel to consumers yourself, but I doubt the success rate for this method was very high. *RESEARCH Today, it is much easier to have a large audience view your own work. Sites such as YouTube allow any user to upload their own content. The public then has the ability to go onto YouTube, search for, and view any content. Therefore Star Trek fans and the general public can easily view your appropriated film that includes clips from Star Trek. Because on sites like YouTube it is free to upload videos and watch them, it is becoming widely popular for the public to not only upload to the internet, but view amateur appropriated films as well.

Any amateur with the ability to download films, access to a simple editing program, and internet access, can appropriate moving image and have the potential to be very popular and successful. Because access it digital technology has made it simpler to appropriate images and distribute them, the practice is becoming more and more popular. Anyone can edit films simply, but more importantly, anyone can distribute their films. In the past, if you were to make a film, it was difficult to get it out to the public and to gain a large audience unless your film was shown in an independent theatre. Today, anyone can post on the internet. This access to dissemination inspires more people to make their own appropriated films. If you know there is a chance of the public seeing your work and providing feedback, you would be more inclined to actually put in the effort to create your own appropriated film.

In addition to an increase in volume of appropriated works, the influx of technology and rise of different media allow for more creative uses of appropriation. Physically cutting and pasting of filmstrips allows for very limited editing capabilities. Because of new digital technology, so much more can be done than simply rearranging and combining existing films. Access to technologies like flash and handheld digital video cameras allow creators to easily add in their own story lines without having to buy film and an expensive camera and pasting in their own filmstrips. Creating films based off of the storylines and worlds in other existing films is made simpler because of digital media technologies. New media digital images can be appropriated in many more creative ways because of new media. Because of digital technology, films are not appropriated into just films. The moving image culture can now be seen appropriated into songs, visual and digital art, and podcasts. Artists are creating paintings with video game or film characters as the main subject. There are also songs that are based off of movies and the world created in those movies. For example, punk band Taj Motel Trio has a song titled “Vader” that is all about Darth Vader and even includes ska renditions of the Imperial March and the main theme. The ease of appropriation from medium to medium mirrors and perpetuates the convergence of media that exists today because of all of emerging, synced, and multipurpose technologies.

Instead of simply consuming media now, consumers are becoming producers. By appropriating existing works and producing new works, consumers are introducing a whole new way of consuming new media. Producing these appropriated works is a way of consuming the original works. This new form of consumption allows the public to participate in culture, not simply consume it. Technical and cultural competencies allow the public to participate in each “next big thing” that comes along in popular culture. However, these creative ways of consuming new media can sometimes clash with the media industry’s interests.

Film industries exist primarily to make money. Yes, they are striving to produce quality, inspiring films, but they cannot exist unless they make money. When consumers take moving images that belong to film industries in order to make their own new works, some industries believe that this is stealing. And, as said before, because the law is vague and always has trouble keeping up with the problems that come with emerging technologies, the issues are seldom settled. The problem of the blurred line between stealing and appropriation not only angers film industries, but other art industries as well. Patrick Cariou wrote a book in 2000 titled Yes, Rasta, which consisted of a collection of photographs Cariou had taken of Rastafarians in Jamaica over the course of six years. In December of 2007, Richard Prince held a gallery show titled Canal Zone that consisted of paintings where Prince appropriated the photographs from Cariou’s book without permission. Prince argued that what he did was fair use because he would do things such as place an electric guitar in the picture and blob out subjects’ faces. However, Cariou disagreed and decided to sue. Prince tried to argue that Cariou’s photographs were not art, but Cariou won and the judge ordered that all of Prince’s offending paintings be destroyed. Although, appropriation is seen by many as a way to consume and participate in culture, the blurred line between appropriation and stealing causes legal problems when owners of the original works disagree.

Regardless of creative consumers sometimes conflicting with the media industry, appropriation of works is more popular than ever due to the ease of and access to the technology that allows for producers to create and distribute their own appropriated works. One way to consume the moving image is to produce appropriated works of your own. This leads to greater participation in culture, giving the public a more active role in digital moving image culture.

Bibliography

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Figures

Figure 1:

Original (Cariou) Appropriated (Prince)

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, United States Constitution.

17 U.S.C. § 107 (Title 17, Chapter 1, Article 107).

Abel, David. Renderings of the Real: Experimental Music, Horror Film, and the Extra-Subjective Spectator. The Institute of Musical Research. < http://music.sas.ac.uk/imr-events/imr-conferences-colloquia-performance-events/sound-music-and-the-moving-image-conference/abstracts.html>

Dmytryk, Edward. On Film Editing: An Introduction to the Art of Film Construction. Focal Press, Boston. (1984).

Boczkowski, Pablo J. and José A. Firm. Multiple Media, Convergent Processess, and

Burgess, Jean. Vernacular Creativity, Cultural Participation and New Media Literacy: Photography and the Flickr Network. Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of technology. (2006). < http://creativitymachine.net/downloads/publications/JeanBurgessAoIR2006.pdf >

see Figure 1

Duggan, Bob. Modern Maturity: The Case Against Richard Prince’s Appropriations. Big Think, (2011). <http://bigthink.com/ideas/31757>