One of the reasons I like Reason magazine’s online content is that it makes me think and challenges some of my political and cultural pre-conceptions.
Nick Gillespie has a take on a lawsuit between the Directors’ Guild of America and Clean Flicks, a company which sells expurgated versions of films on dvd to a “family values market”:
Utah-based CleanFlicks is one of a dozen or so companies that delete sex, violence, and profanity from movies and then distribute the bowdlerized versions (which are clearly labeled as such) to their mostly religious customers. Among the sanitizersâ most widely reported edits was the pixelation of Winsletâs bare breasts in James Cameronâs blockbuster Titanic.
Now, how would you expect a libertarian writer to approach this? The creator of the film or the holder of the copyright has property rights which can be defended? Interestingly, Gillespie takes another tack altogether.
As a writer, I sympathize with Aptedâs sense of creative ownership and his fear of losing control of his work. But as a viewer, I already act as an editor of hisâand every other directorâsâfilms. There is only unauthorized editing whenever a piece of culture is put in front of an audience. The individuals watching in the darkened theater, the family room, or on a computer screen are constantly making choices, skipping over stuff, misinterpreting things, and more. The audience has a mind of its own, and that mind doesnât care very much about the creatorâs intentions.
What might be called the âold romantic geniusâ? model described by Apted, in which a visionary creator produces and an audience passively consumes culture as intended, is over. In fact, that model never reflected the way culture worked (Reefer Madness, anyone?). But even the pretense to such audience control is finished in todayâs environment, in which individuals have an ever-increasing ability to produce and consume culture on their own terms.
There’s something in that. Gillespie also refers to file-sharing on the intertubes, and generally argues for an approach to culture which is consumer-centred. You could make a similar argument using an open source paradigm, and indeed from a cultural studies point of view. Even, dare I say it, those who hold with the postmodern Barthes “author is dead” line would find something to like here.
It interests me how different socio-technological and political ideas intersect over this issue, albeit those from different perspectives would use different language to trace them out.
What does get me, though, and I’m speaking both as someone who’s worked in creative arts and who’s also had stuff appropriated for purposes I didn’t intend, is the level of scale. I’m attracted to creative and literary and artistic production being seen as a collective and multifaceted endeavour, and indeed one reason why some of my personal experience here doesn’t bother me too much is that I’d accord validity to other uses of my work than my own conception of it. But there’s a difference between someone who tries to earn a living from creative work and big Hollywood studios. As often happens, power disparities are elided in this example of libertarian thinking, or at least so I think.
But it’s interesting and it made me think. I’d be interested in what others think.
<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/katewinslettitanic2.jpg"
Kim,
In order to focus the discussion, it might be worthwhile seeing what a program like The Sopranos might look like in such a scenario: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_5XYmALfVs&mode=related&search=
Heh!
Sorry, but using critical theory to justify censorship is a clear sign that you need to pull your head out of the warm dark space in which you have it wedged.
Using Titanic as a case in point is not so much a clear sign as an impassioned plea to be slapped upside the head.
Yeah, but the issue is not about the audience per se. It’s not about Mom hastily fast-forwarding across a scene to prevent Little Johnny catching a glimpse of the Satanic hellbait that is Kate Winslet’s boobies.
It’s about this company, “CleanFlicks”, acting as a self-imposed intermediary between director and viewer, and dishing out it’s own lame censored version of the film. Screw them. Nick Gillespie should hand in his libertarian badge.
I can’t wait to see Cleanflicks forthcoming blockbuster, The Seven Commandments.
I am all for mashups and mixes but I don’t see this example as one that can be defended on free culture grounds. Presumably the Cleanflicks people make some sort of profit out of remixing movies and in a way that very possibly diverts profits the copyright owner might reasonably have expected to have had some access to.
I believe very strongly that remixing for profit needs to be seen and treated entirely differently to remixing for fun. Mash for profit does impede the original creator’s IP rights and while extant copyright law is too draconian, some form of legal pretection is really necessary and desirable otherwise people will stop making creative work especially the expensive kind like movies. Mashups for fun hardly ever have a negative impact on the market for the original products. And when mashups and mixes are made at the maker’s expense and given away for free, the relentless one-way clarity of the producer-consumer relationship is mashed up as well.
In this instance the bowdleriser companies are making a new product to sell on to a passive end-user, one who is even less free to mix and mash on his or her own initiative than usual, because some significant choices have already been made on that user’s behalf.
Paulus, intellectual consistency is not a necessary part of the libertarian universe. True freedom is the right to make the opposite argument to the one you made five minutes ago, especially if property is involved.
True, but irrelevant. That I close my eyes for the ‘needle’ scene in Pulp Fiction and the gory bits of Trainspotting doesn’t mean I should be allowed to make a living out of editing films I didn’t make. The prurient fixations of this lot who go through movies looking for the boobies aren’t just their problems: Laura’s right, IP is the issue, not the subjectivity of the audience.
These days everyone thinks they’re Charles Lamb.
This all goes to show how problematic the notion of “intellectual property” is.
Defenders of property rights should fall into two camps:
- those who believe it’s an inherent human right granted by God (or some other mystical concept), to be respected regardless of consequences; and
- those who believe that we should follow a rule respecting them because that has the best practical consequences for human welfare.
(BTW, actually existing libertarians are often very confused on this point.)
The first group need to decide if this divine gift includes such a nebulous and recent concept as IP, and to justify it to the rest of us by quoting scripture or whatever.
For the second group, the rule is “ye shall know them by their fruits”. The only practical purpose of IP is to encourage innovation – there is no inherent right to IP, and issues around it should be judged solely by this practical consequence. Can you seriously tell me that allowing clearly labelled edited versions, for which people have already paid their money, will reduce the propensity of studios to make films displaying Ms Winslet’s lovely breasts? I’d imagine quite the opposite – it’s another market they wouldn’t otherwise get.
There’s a slippery slope refutation to Gillespie’s rather specious argument.
At some point the pixellation of an author’s work transcends the merely aesthetic, prudish or preferential and shades over into misrepresentation.
Let us say, for example, that a publishing company buys the right to republish a text supportive of “intelligent design”. Let us say it then edits the text to reverse the meaning of every argument by the judicious addition and deletion of the word “not”.
The author of the book could argue that his intention had been utterly subverted. And he would be right. The publishers could reply that the book was never anything more than a work of fiction. And they too would be right.
Yet, the author has some stake in his reputation and integrity and should be protected from having them besmirched in the way described.
There is a bright line to be drawn between private, accidental and incidental editing of creative works and those done with intent, no matter how noble, against the wishes of the author, in the public domain.
“In this instance the bowdleriser companies are making a new product to sell on to a passive end-user, one who is even less free to mix and mash on his or her own initiative than usual, because some significant choices have already been made on that user’s behalf.”
If you think about it in terms of viewing as an event, then Gillespie is being disengenius because it means the event of viewing is distributed across the viewer, the received technologies of viewing (tv, dvd player, etc), passive ‘off-site’ mediators (reviews, commentary, etc) synthesised in one’s capacity for discrimination and now an active ‘off-site’ mediating socio-technology.
Viewers are thus rendered more passive, and are not liberated at all, which perfectly captures the passivity of religious fundies.
So I expect you all won’t mind me monitoring the stories you read to your kids, to make sure that you always tell the story 100% as written on the page and never, ever bowdlerise to protect your childrens’ sensibilities? After all, the rights of the work’s author is absolutely paramount…
As far as I’m concerned, bugger the creative intentions of the author. As long as a) the author gets paid, b) their original authorship is acknowledged, and c) the fact that it’s no longer in their intended form, more power to CleanFlicks. While I find the idea that I’d willingly pay to have something bowdlerised for me bizarre, I can find no justification whatsoever to stop other people doing so.
Robert, editing as you read a story (or as you watch a movie) isn’t bowdlerising – those are just completely normal activities that readers and audients do when they encounter a text. Bowdlerising makes material changes to the text.
derrida derider, I can seriously say that I think if studios decide they have a better chance at capturing both the general and the wowser market by making films which don’t show boobs, then they will apply pressure to creative technicians to not make films with boobs in them, which would be an unmitigated disaster for SBS, or what seems more likely to me is that fewer and fewer directors will be allowed to have final cut on their films or offered contracts which disallow the simultaneous release of a film in multiple versions each aimed at different sections of the paying audience.
Laura, that sounds awfully like the difference between erotica and pornography.
Robert, if Hollywood released their movies under Creative Commons licence your reasoning would apply. For whatever reason, though, studios generally reserve their rights to say what constitutes their movie or not, and how their movies can be shown.
If James Cameron says that Titanic should feature boobs, then a Titanic without boobs isn’t James Cameron’s Titanic.
Liam, I am arguing precisely that if current law does give them the right to dictate how that movie should be shown, that law is overly restrictive to no good purpose other than the overinflated egos of overpaid movie directors.
Robert, the difference is that next time you read the book, your earlier actions have not changed the text and images it contains. You, of course, are free to say what you like. I like to make Pooh Bear talk dirty, myself, just out of sheer freaking boredom at the horror that is Winnie the Pooh.
Robert, egomaniacs or not directors and other artists have some rights to the market value of their own names don’t they? Once this sort of control is lost to directors (and it will not be lost to the likes of Cleanflicks but to the major studios, if it turns out there’s money in this) then they will have no way of protecting the investments they’ve made in their own brands by maintaining a particular standard.
My basic concern here is not stroking egos of arty fartys but in ensuring that people who make culture have some incentive to actually put in a serious effort – if you make work for a studio on the understanding that it’s going to be completely mangled by them, you no longer have any reason to produce anything but hack stuff.
There is an analogy here with framing formats and tv sales. Because tv and cinema screen ratios differ so much there soon emerged two basic options: wide format films subjected to pan & scan (post-production mangling), or shooting for tv and masking for cinema (two versions built in from the beginning of the process). When studios realised they could onsell films to tv networks they began to insist that filmmakers shoot a tv-screen shaped image which is then masked across the top and bottom of the image to reformat it for cinema exhibition (at the wider ratio). So the image had to be shot to be legible in both formats which generally meant it was available for expressive use in neither. The obvious third option, screen wide format films on tv inside a letterbox, was pooh-poohed as completely unpalatable to audiences for a very long time, but for no particularly good reason and I think it is pretty much standard acceptable practice now.
I’m also reminded of David Lynch’s decision to not make the dvd of Mulholland Drive available sectioned up into chapters.
I don’t see how Cleanflicks is doing anything different from the makers of mod-chips for an X-box.
Both are changing the content of something that is made by someone else – making it different from how it was – and both are doing it for profit. I see no justifiable reason for the law to prevent either from doing it.
No law should be allowed to stop me from buying my own copy of Titanic and pixellating Kate’s boobs, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to pay a middle-man to do this for me.
As long as it is clearly marked, and as long as Cleanflicks are paying what they should for the original film, then the law should not prevent them from doing whatever they like to it. Once they’ve bought it, it’s theirs.
That analogy works, Anna, as long as Clearflix were buying one DVD for every DVD they sold. If you chipmod a console, you’ve got to buy the console first. What Clearflix were actually doing was buying one DVD and copying it—analogous to someone selling cheap clone consoles.
Cleanflix, excuse me.
Yeah, which was my point about paying what they should. That’s the only thing the law should enforce, but I see no issues with them choosing to make films more boring once they’ve bought it.
But they would still be marketing it as the “same” film only Lite. Their ability to sell it depends on them claiming to have not actually made it “different to how it was” in the same way as a remake or a parody or a continuation or commentary or or other substantive adaptation of the kind protected by free speech and fair use provisions and already provided for under current arrangements. They would still sell Titanic as Titanic, not as a different movie.
I’ve seen several recent Mormon films including the utterly utterly terrifying adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and my strongest urge was to insert boobs and bums into them – for the Children
Firstly there is no government involved so there is no censorship which is a public policy issue as far as libertarans are concerned.
Secondly most libertarians do not think IP rights are equivalent to other property rights with the exception of the Ayn Rand followers, so there is no inconsistency, contrary to Liam. On the other hand if LP patrons like Liam who are suddenly so het up about property rights and want to resolve their inconsistencies they are welcome to join the Ayn Randians. IP rights are one of the most problematic forms of property rights – they have been likened to artificial monopolies granted by the State so to repeat there is no inconsistency at all. Some libertarians are even in favour of abolishing IP completely.
As someone who comes to libertarianism indirectly through economics I do not go that far – I believe that IP rights are a nuanced utility-maximising device worth keeping but they obviously involve subtle tradeoffs which deridda derider has expounded well in his comment. The arguments being made here by those who disapprove of this companyare essentially for strengthening IP bymoral rights protection which I do not believe has any additional incentive benefits and therefore I oppose. Thus I come down on Gillespie’s side. IP rights are problematic enough as they are. They should exist but I believe the presumption is against strengthening them or extending them any further.
How many LP readers would be so up in arms if this case involved a satirist distributing doctored versions of Disney characters engaged in pornographic acts? (which incidentally I would equally support)
Who’s up in arms, Jason? It’s just a conversation as far as I can tell.
to take your last Disney example I would want to preserve the very big distinction between satire and bowdlerisation. Satire can never be mistaken for or substitute for the original, in fact to suceeds it needs to have a strong original in the background to bounce off. So it’s a kind of commentary, which is really an important thing to encourage and allow. A bowdlerised text aims to replace the original – viewers of the sanitised Titanic are not tacitly encouraged to compare the two versions and get entertainment out of the discrepancy.
This reminds me of those reader’s digest books — the condensed ones — which were pitched at much the same conservative audience.
Bully for your open-mindedness, Jason. As Laura pointed out, your analogy isn’t valid.
A correct analogy to what Cleanflix were doing with movies would be (say) me registering a domain—say, cleancatallaxyfiles.com—mirroring content, editing out the ruder commenters, passing off the result as equivalent and better, and making a bit of money from google ads.
Well it might not particularly bother me, but I think the Disney Corporation might have something to say about the matter.
Sorry, but I’ve just conjured up this horrible image involving Ayn Rand.
I left some comments earlier though they seem to have been caught by the spaminator. Good in some ways because I somewhat overlooked the copyright issues in the production of these sanitised films.
I don’t think I’d say these films aim to *replace* the original; they seem to be fairly clearly targeted at a market that wants to see the films, absent the rude bits. They seem to offer another market choice for viewers who are not happy with the current range of market choices.
This is common: television networks edit the content of films in this manner all the time.
A better example of bowdlerisation, as Laura describes it, might be found in the example of the publishing company that is currently re-releasing Enid Blyton’s children’s books and censoring out the passages that are deemed politically incorrect. (Unless of course they are thinking of releasing two versions of Blyton’s books).
There are plenty of examples in the media and the arts where this sort of thing happens, anyway. I don’t find it particularly shocking or disturbing.
Clear labelling of content – ie. as substantially altered – should be required of any product that is being marketed in relation to its original form. That is, if it is being sold as Titanic, it should be mentioned that the film is not the same as it was within it’s earlier – and culturally more significant – appearances in cinemas and on video. Wherever something is removed, but it is sold as the same thing, consumers should be made aware. This is a practical consumer issue, like when food has to have it’s ingredients listed. It’s got only a passing similarity to a censorship issue.
As far as intellectual property goes, let the lawyers sort it out since it’s between two private companies taking profits. Personally, I’d like to see Clean Flicks sunk by legal action, but the best thing for everyone would be for there to be no in advance requirement to pay for the use of copyrighted material. That way small timers could dabble and try their luck without fear of legal action. When there are huge profits to be had, that’s when things could get nasty. The possible risks should grow according to how much money you end up making. I’m sure there are huge holes in this argument…
What TimT said.
I’d hate to have to count the number of different versions (for different age-groups) there are of classic children’s stories.
Presumably Cleanflix is paying Disney or Fox or whoever owns the film, so there is no problem.
Technology now allows us to easily control content to suit our tastes. That’s good. the Track Skip button, the FF button – all good things. (Freeze frame on TV is very handy if you watching the news and they decide to run a Baghdad scene just as the children run into the room.)
Obviously, it’s a little shocking to some, that sex is still verboten in some communities, but, that example aside, the principle of customising content is long entrenched. (Samuel Beckett’d be apopleptic, however.)
No, they aim to replace the original – to supplant it might be a better word – as opposed to parodies, spoofs, satires sequels etc which don’t make sense unless the viewer understands that they stand in a certain parasitic relationship to an original. Sanitised edits are not aimed at people who have seen the original and will relish the comparison, they are aimed at people who want a modified substitute for the original.
wbb, according to the original article Cleanflicks are not actually paying the copyright owners for the manipulations they are making – they are only paying for copies of the original work. I doubt Disney or Fox would release those rights. They would simply cut out the middleman and sell the sanitised versions themselves, if it was contractually possible. TV performance editing rights are built into contracts and are strictly limited to network tv versions wheich are classified as performances rather than as redistributable versions of the work.
I agree that technology allows us to manipulate content to suit our tastes but that is not relevant here. If that was the whole issue then mormons could just ffwd the rude bits same as everyone else.
the existence of multiple versions of stories isn’t relevant either. Basic pre-textual plots can’t be copyrighted, and rightly so – realisations or embodiments in language or recorded performance can be and those works are what copyright relates to. Disney’s performance of Snow White is protected but the story is free for everyone to use.
What they aim to achieve and what actually happens in the market are two different things. As long as appropriate contractual and transactional costs (not always the same) change hands on a voluntary basis, I don’t see the problem.
I would have more of a problem if they were effectively ‘modding’ the stuff without paying the appropriate costs.
Wonder if Janet Jackson has got anything to say about this?
This Week In Wowserville:
Enterprising evangelical pastors(are there any other kind?) have stocked on-site Church Retail Outlets with blue and pink lambswool Baby Modesty Blindfolds. The pastors insist that no effort will be spared to protect the little ones from the temptations of the flesh while suckling. The manufacturers claim that children shouldn’t be made aware of sex until they are old enough to control it.
Liam: what about if somebody events the CleanCatallaxyBrowser, that displays the site minus the “more offensive commenters”. Do you have a problem with that too? I certainly don’t.
Laura: how many directors actually have final cut rights anyway? In any case, none of this stops directors doing deals requiring the studios to make the movies available in the desired form. All CleanFlix does is empowers individuals to watch the movies in the form they choose. And, sorry, but when it comes to my rights to watch as I choose, versus Michael Apted’s rights to insist that I watch Michael Apted’s movie as Michael Apted intended, Michael Apted can suck wind.
Robert, Michael Apted is not insisting anything about how you watch his movie. He can’t, any more than he can insist all viewers of his films give them standing ovations at the end of every screening. This is not A Clockwork Orange where the viewer’s eyes are held open with wire. He’s only insisting on retaining current minimal levels of control over what a movie bearing his name _is_.
You don’t have any capacity to dictate the content of texts you consume, unless you make them yourself. No more than you have the right to tell the sun when to come up. You can choose whether to look at it it not, that’s all.
Cleanflicks don’t empower individuals, since they are doing all the choosing on the end-user’s behalf. They’re actually just piggybacking on someone else’s investment.
How many directors have final cut? Not many (James Cameron does, though) but almost all have some contractual rights, including the right to take their names off films that come out mangulated.
With respect, that’s complete bollocks. Let’s say I recommend to my friends that they only read the sex scenes in Lady Chatterley’s Lover and skip the rest of the book, and they do so. Are you seriously arguing that there is some kind of moral or ethical problem with me doing so? Or is this one of the mysterious non-material changes that you mentioned earlier?
Well I can’t bother trawling through every post on this topic, but has anybody visited their website? http://www.cleanflicks.com/saleover.php
Apparently it’s over people. All packed up on August 31 this year.
Couple of chardy induced observations:
1) ‘Edited DVD’ labelling seems prominent.
2) If the graphic’s any guide, in CleanFlickWorld everyone’s whitish, and blondish and somewhat patriachalish.
I’ll leave the copyright and IP issues up to the lawyers. But would anybody honestly consider rent/purchase of ‘Pulp Fiction’ with that lot on the cover?
If so, they deserve everything they get.
The folks who scrub movies for inflight viewing have clearly missed a market opportunity here.
I’m all for a bit of ineffectual censorship. Just adds a nice little frission to acquiring and viewing the real thing.
And as regards the IP issue, I can’t think of any more ferocious defender of IP than Hollywood.
It’s not bollocks Robert! I’m just trying to make a very very simple point – doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference what you the reader choose to do with your copy of that licentious piece of smut Lady Chatterley’s Lover, the words of the novel as printed by Penguin and as purchasable from bookshops and readable in the deposit copy in the Library of Congress, they do not change – that’s all!!! not bollocks!
If you don’t read a contract before you sign it, that doesn’t mean the bits you didn’t read cease to exist or to have any effect…
Laura’s absolutely right…Ugghh…Powers fading….Kryptonite (sigh…)
Meh. Off to bed. Night all.
But Laura…even though the movie has been cut and changed you can still see the original. The altered version is clearly labeled as such. Obviously only those who WANT to have a restricted version will buy it.
I really don’t see the problem.
If someone “cleaned up” a creative work you’d put your best efforts into, you would.
“If someone âcleaned upâ? a creative work youâd put your best efforts into, you would.”
Gee Laura, maybe authors should sue editors then?
For real Mark? Do you not see the difference?
I completely get why the creators of the movie would be upset by it. I just don’t think it’s something that the law should be allowed to prevent. It would just open up a whole bunch of difficult problems for creative people (and the companies that finance them) in other fields, particularly in the area of digital rights management etc.
Perhaps missed by many commenters in the CleanFlicks case is the following:
CleanFlicks were the complainants. CleanFlicks sought to make a pre-emptive strike on the right of copyright owners to dictate prohibitions against modifications of their property.
CleanFlicks sought a ruling against the Directors’ Guild of America. The DGA then persuaded several of the major studios, the biggest owners of intellectual property, to join the DGA in defending CleanFlicks’ action.
Perhaps if CleanFlicks had just gone on quietly pixellating norks in the name of all that is good and decent, then the studios, who had nothing to lose financially from selling their product to outfits like CleanFlicks, would have continued to look the other way.
The studios were more or less reluctant parties in this action. It is quite possible that the studios found themselves in a situation where they needed to weigh revenue losses from sales to outfits like CleanFlicks against incurring the anger of the most important creative forces in Hollywood. An historical note: once upon a time the studios owned the movie business. But since the late 1960s they only operate it by consent. Studios can’t order directors around any more.
No one doubts that copyright owners can impose any conditions they like on the on-sale of their property. It is up to the purchaser to negotiate with the owner.
If CleanFlicks were really cutting-edge proponents of Barthesianism, they wouldn’t have bothered with the court action in the first place.
As cultural rebels, even after their self-inflicted legal defeat, they’d go on bravely pixellating every pink bit that they wanted to, despite the law.
But the truth is that CleanFlicks are anything but cultural rebels. They are creeping-jesus pedlars of sanctimony. And stupid to boot.
Yes Katz, copyright does give the owners those powers, bear in mind that over many years, a great number of movies, tv shows etc have been lawfully ammended to meet censorship requirements across a range of cultures, even advanced countries such as Singapore enforce this rigourously.
I’d like to see some companies springing up that made a living out of editing Kate Winslet’s boobs INTO more films.
Yes, me too.
Well full frontal nude peeing (and a crap script) certainly doused Jane Campion’s career, so be careful what you wish for.
“One of the reasons I like Reason magazine’s online content is that it makes me think and challenges some of my political and cultural pre-conceptions.”
Yeah well you keep it up sister.
And a bit closer to Christmas I’ll be writing to you and temptress Anna and I’ll be asking you to reconsider and come over to the bright side of the road.
And I might write to Weathergirl as well. Although she needs to go through some sort of purgatory first.
We believe in redemption.
But its got to be GENUINE.
Time for you all to come in from the cold.
One day at Christmas it will be time to come in from the cold.
I’ll likely write to that girly girly girl-type-girl Zoe as well.
But she was never exactly on the dark side methinks.
So – have the catallaxians given you a full-time wage for this, or are you doing it out of the kindness of your heart?
We’re on to you, dude.
never exactly on the dark side …
Dude, I was BORN into the dark side: see this if you don’t believe me.
What! I! so! love! about! teh! bird! is! his! complete! commitment! to! reason!
Answer! teh! question! Homer!
Why is jerk being allowed back into the house?
Kim, I agree that this makes you think and I thank you for it. But it also worries me.
I agree with everything Laura has said on this thread, which of course does not mean that she will agree with me.
I also agree with Katz in identifying the issue of misrepresentation.
The judge did couch his judgement in terms of “artistic works” and I guess that I have an old-fashioned view. An artistic work is a creation by an author (or authors) or a maker (makers). In recorded form this is frozen in time, but is an act of communication which, being recorded, is then unbound by time. It is also a particular settlement of internal and external psychological factors made manifest in a chosen medium in a chosen form.
This deserves respect and the authors/makers deserve respect, quite apart from intellectual property, making money and all that stuff.
Gillespie says:
This model , he tells us, never was and now even the pretense is over. All power is with the consumer who can “produce and consume culture on their own terms.”
I think he is silly to think of the process of experiencing artistic works as passive. And privately he can indeed consume culture in his own terms, but that is a private matter. I say he is a wanker if he does that in the arbitrary and disrespectful way described. Whatever he is doing he is not experiencing the artistic work.
But he goes beyond the private and seems to think it’s OK to present to the public an altered version of the work which clearly subverts the intentions of the makers. This is offensive in the extreme.
I’d argue this, not in terms of God-given rights or scripture, but in terms of values. Values of the world I’d like to live in. If the order of the day is to elevate the rights of consumer to become producer in the free-for-all envisaged by Gillespie, then I’m glad I’m and old guy and, like Warnie, closer to the end than the beginning.
Of course there may be authors/makers who are quite happy for their work to be used and abused at the whim of any nutter that chooses to. Then let them say so at the outset. Otherwise it is only common decency to ask if you want to change something with the implication that if the answer is “no” then the matter ends there.
PS. Reading stories creatively to kids is a private matter and not relevant to the issues at stake.
Surely the real issue with this is all the people it will produce who are sexually aroused by pixellation?