October 1st
By Zixuan Li
Image from remix website
In the digital age, Remix has been integrated into our lives. Remix refers to the adaptation of elements such as march music style and rhythm on existing works or the integration of multiple works to create new works, stimulating creators’ creativity and bringing more novel artistic methods to the public. With the rise of remix culture, there have been many controversies about the freedom of cultural creativity and copyright. Brett Gaylor believes that remix embodies cultural and creative freedom, but copyright law restricts the freedom of creators. I will explore Remix’s controversy over freedom and copyright in this post.
Is it legal?
Have you ever used remix music when creating videos on TikTok? Have you ever seen some bloggers Posting remix videos? Reading this, you may think that you have inadvertently used Remix’s work on social media and may worry that you have broken the law. In fact, Copyright Act 29.21 states that there is no infringement as long as the original work is published in the public domain, the original author is identified, is not used for commercial purposes and does not affect the value of the original work. Clarissa Harvey, a brand and trademark lawyer, said： When there is no ‘direct economic benefit,’ the line between commercial and personal use is blurred.
“All we do is put things together and share them with other people”-Brett Gaylor
Everyone believes it is a very simple and convenient creative process to piece together other people’s works to form new works and release them through simple editing. Individual creators create popular works through remixes to gain more attention and income, but the original authors will not receive copyright fees, and individual creators will not infringe copyright. This leads to less and less original work in our lives. Many remix works make great changes to the original works, completely contradicting the original author’s creative philosophy, resulting in the original author feeling that he is not respected.
The following is the original and remix version of the Chinese song Snow. You can feel that they are two different expressions.
Does copyright law restrict creative freedom？
In the era of remix culture, many popular videos we see on social media platforms are creative videos created by integrating popular cultural elements into original works. The copyright law against Remix is very vague. When I browse TIktok software in China, It is often seen in the comments section that fans suggest that publishers label the original author, but in fact, the publisher does not know who the original author is, which leads many creators to delete their excellent works for fear of copyright infringement.
Undeniably, copyright law has specific restrictions on the creation of Remixes, and the copyright law should add clearer regulations on Remix to ensure the freedom of creators and the rights and interests of original authors.
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