Remix Culture

The fact that everything might be a remix and that there are no original ideas is shocking and, could it mean that most people are creative enough to make something new from what’s old? The famous quotes “good artist copy, and great artist steal” which was attributed to Pablo Picasso and Steve Jobs in the 1995 interview.

This came as a surprise for a majority of the people because Apple was known to sue any and everyone who dared to steal ideas from their products. Apple has sued quite some companies that allegedly copied or stole its intellectual property and ideas. In 1988 Apple sued Microsoft and HP for copyright infringement over similarities of Windows and NewWave; also Late Steve Jobs was at war with Google Android mobile for stealing ideas from iPhone and iPad. Steve Jobs told a biographer Walter Isaacson in an interview saying :

“I will spend My last dying breath if I need to and I will spend every penny of Apple $40 billion in the bank, to the right this wrong.”

I guess it is okay to say, that stealing, copying or even remixing other people’s ideas is okay, so far it is not ours, and in Job’s case its okay to protect your own when it isn't in your favor. Too bad we can’t have it both ways.

However, great and prestigious people have admitted to taking great ideas from others, it is said to be the act of being creative and innovative especially in today's society. It is assumed that people continuously learn from copying and doing the same thing differently. It can be argued that this so-called remix culture has been around for a while. Artist has continually adopted these tactics by taking others idea, it is almost routine for an artist to sample beat, sometimes lyrics, from other artists. Same can be said in movies; it doesn’t matter what field. These further prove that we live in a remix culture which suffers from the stagnation of imagination.