I’m a bit of an anarchist when it comes to Intellectual Property, especially in the realm of art. I imagine that makes me a bit of an outlier, and I think my position stems, in part at least, from the fact that I don’t expect to ever make much money from my art, so from that perspective at least, I don’t have much to lose by blowing up the system. I’d like to think that if I ever created something so recognizable that other artists decided they wanted to repurpose it, mash it up with other things, even openly mock it, I’d be so flattered by the attention that I wouldn’t object, but to be honest, I don’t know how I’d react. It’s easy to be an idealist when you don’t stand to lose anything, after all.

I started thinking about this (again) a couple of days ago when I read this piece by Andy Baio about his experiences working on a project called “Kind of Bloop,” a chiptune version of the powerful record by Miles Davis, Kind of Blue. Here’s the short version–Baio licensed the songs and then made an 8-bit version of the cover art. And then he got sued. …more

by Marianne Rogoff

We’re distracted, our attention is shot, we are under surveillance, and we don’t care! We like being linked and friended by strangers who may or may not be who they say they are. …more