Key Questions and Lessig

1. The key questions that my project asks are "Is art collaboration legal?" and "How do videos become so popular while others get lost on the worldwide web?" The evidence I have for the first question is sites like creative commons and hitrecord, even YouTube to a point. They all allow videos to be broadcasted, creative commons and hitrecord encourage collaboration while YouTube not so much. There is still remixing on YouTube though, but my main focus for YouTube is why some of the videos posted have millions of views while others have not even ten views. I want to study some videos and see there rise to popularity or make a video and test different methods to make it popular.


2. Lessig says, "If the twentieth century made culture generally accessible, the twenty- first will make it universally accessible". I think this relates to my project because now that everything is accessible to everyone it makes people more likely to use each others material. Lessig's whole article is about people making copies of other peoples material whether it be a song or movie or whatever. My project is about talking what you now have access to and making it into something completely unique in itself. I also am asking how videos and things posted online become more popular than others and I think this kind of gives the idea that anything can be found if you are looking for it.


Lessig also says, "In the twenty- first century, television and movies will be bookified. Or again, our expectations about how we should be able to access video content will be the same as the expectations we have today about access to books. The idea that you would conform your schedule to a distributor’s will seem increasingly ridiculous. The idea that you would have to wait till “prime time” to watch prime television will seem just fascist. Freedom will mean freedom to choose to watch what you want when you want, just as freedom to read means the freedom to read what you want when you want. In both cases, not necessarily for free. But in both cases, according to your schedule, not the schedule of someone else". Here again, Lessig is talking about the idea that of accessing information when you want it. He thinks people will watch what they want when they want it. I think that this fit with youtube. You can type almost anything into youtube now a days and you can get instantly anything you typed into the search box. Whether it be a specific clip from the grammys or what have you. I think its interesting to see what people want to see. What can they not wait to watch?