Art in the Digital Age

      It’s hard to say which ideas are original anymore. Now that we have access to so many readily available digital resources, almost anyone can make and share art. With so many ideas floating around, some are bound to be repeated or reused. One idea might inspire another, or one person may want to expand on another person's original concept. It seems pretty simple. But when the issue of copyrights enters the picture, things get a little more complicated. It raises the question, what is the difference between material that's "borrowed" and material that's "stolen"? 

     First, it is important to consider why copyrights have become such an issue. With digital media becoming a bigger and bigger global phenomena, the way we think of art and the possession of art has been affected. If someone were to walk into a music store and take a CD without paying for it, it's stealing. The owner of the store has one less CD than they had before and no profit. But if you download an mp3 from the internet, it's not as if the mp3 disappears. The artist has an infinite number of digital files, therefore it's harder to determine where the line is. In his article, Manovich says, "the computer media revolution affects all stages of communication, including acquisition, manipulation, storage, and distribution". In other words, digital media has changed the way we view ownership. 

     Another trend that has been shaped by the influence of digital media is, as Lethem calls it, collage. According to Dixon, "the computer is commonly employed as an agent for the remediation of old and established artistic forms...rather than as a means for originating authentically new performance processes and phenomena". I don't fully agree with this statement, but it lends to the idea of collage art. Some artists have begun using other peoples' material to supplement their own. One of the most well known is Girl Talk, who creates dance mixes using samples from popular songs. His entire livelihood-the music he creates- is grounds for a lawsuit. Some people view what he does as art, but others call it plagiarism and believe Girl Talk should be prosecuted. Lessig discusses this call to increase copyrights. He says, "I believe we should not be waging this war...instead, I believe in peace because the costs of this war wildly exceed any benefit". I have to say I agree with him. Ideally artists would be able to share ideas with each other without worrying about copyrights and without taking advantage of such a system, but the system we have now could also be much worse, so we might as well stick with it.