Why do I climb the mountain? Because I'm in love.

When Harry Met Sally...

Myself and my family were watching this classic together just a few weeks ago. Awarded with 4 Oscars and 11 nominations, Rob Reiner's 1989 film "When Harry Met Sally" is certainly a film many people have heard of and watched and enjoyed.

But it wasn't necessarily the film synopsis that encouraged me to watch the film along with my family. It was a remix of the film's footage - mashed together with an interview with Michael Caine, and moulded into a catchy, electric beat by a band called "Fall On Your Sword".

The section of the film in particular, is when Sally fakes an orgasm in a crowded Brooklyn cafe to prove that women can fake it, and fake it convincingly to Harry. If you haven't seen it, a quick look in YouTube brought me this:


The remixed version here, was created by Fall On Your Sword. Indeed, I downloaded it almost as soon as I watched it, and it's been on my iPod for some time.


The remix culture of the Internet today has always impressed me, and I've become a sort of collector for all kinds of remixes similar to this one. But it's only recently, after a Digital Media Workshop focusing on the remixing culture and copyright that I started to wonder exactly HOW these remixers can share their work globally to millions and millions of people, and yet manage to escape the many legal issues that could possibly endanger them.

Many of these remixes are released non-commercially, for example, under the Creative Commons License.

According to "http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions", the license is based on copyright. So they apply to all works that are protected by copyright law. The kinds of works that are protected by copyright law are books, websites, blogs, photographs, films, videos, songs and other audio & visual recordings, for example. Because copyright registration is automatic here in the UK, there's no need to register your product with Creative Commons. Just saying the product is released according to the Creative Commons license is sufficient.

The license basically allows the creator of the product to decide how people can or cannot use their work, such as the right of others to copy that work, make derivative works or adaptations of that work, to distribute that work and/or make money from that work.

By using such a license, the remixers allow others the ability to remix THEIR remixes and share it with others, though quite often those remixers then release their remixed remixes under the Creative Commons license for the cycle to continue on and on...

The beauty of it is that these samples can be moulded, merged and changed into brand new forms of entertainment - be it music, parodies and more.

The other advantage is that because the remixer is not making any profit from the product or samples contained, they are less likely to come under any legal trouble with the licenses which the samples are released under. For example, in this case, the samples which Fall On Your Sword used were from "When Harry Met Sally", as well as the Michael Caine interview.

But thinking about it, these remixes almost act as advertisements. As I said, I only wanted to watch "When Harry Met Sally" because I'd seen some footage of it from "When Megan Met Michael", and went out to rent the film. I saw F. Gary Grey's 2009 "Law Abiding Citizen" purely because I saw a remix of the original trailer to include characters from a video game I play called "Team Fortress 2". 


The relationship between remixer and original artist is a delicate and yet effective one. But why is it that these remixes continue to be made and continue to be shared?

ccMixter is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons. All of these remixers spend many hours composing these remixes, and yet refuse to make profit from their work. But why? One of their regular DJs, DJ Vadim said: "…releasing music is communication. Nowadays, that means participation and that is what ccMixter offers. It is a combination of the two, letting fans and music people participate and communicate together, with you, with me and create new music and ideas.”



All this remixing got be a little curious, so recently, I stumbled a little into the remix culture myself, remixing Local H's "Bound to the Floor" purely because I wanted to make the song a little bouncier purely for personal entertainment, and just to experiment a little. I had too much fun making the singers chipmunks, or changing the speed and bass of the song. But what amazed me was the infinite range of ways I could change the song into something new, and something enjoyable. And for me, that's the beauty of remixing.

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BRB!


This is my 'media journal' - Tracking and logging all my spitballing comments in regards to digital media, new and old, as I read further into media for my degree course.