Remixing Material - Jesse Barlean

                                      
In class this last Tuesday we talked about Rhetorical Invention and the many different ways one can go about doing so.  A couple of the key points to rhetorical invention were remixing and reusing information that is already on the internet.  We had some discussion about whether it was right for the creators of these new works should be given full credit for the work they have done, because of the fact that they actually used another persons hard work either along side with their own, or in a way that the original artist did not.

While I do see the side of remixing that might be a considered stealing or copying or even lacking creativity, so many of the writings, videos, music and other works that we see and hear today do in fact utilize pieces and ideas from the work that has been done before them.  Even in terms of academic writing, as we spoke about in class, is often writing based on the utilization of other work that has already been done.  The hope in this sense is that the new work that is reusing the old is actually furthering the thoughts and ideas that have been established in the past.  In the same sense, it is very understandable as to why remixed and reused pieces of music and other digital media can be doing the same thing.  When watching DJ Earworm's 2013 mash up, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I couldn't help but be be very very impressed.  It is not like he just slapped together a bunch of songs and took all the credit for them.  He worked diligently piecing each specific line from each song together, while slowing down and speeding up the tempos to match, AND making sure the melodies and notes flow into each other well.  So while no, he did not sing the song or write them (not that any of the artists do either) he did put a lot of effort into them.  And while his medium is music, he is a DJ, not a singer or instrumentalist.  He does not try to present himself as a singer, but rather, a DJ that specializes in mashups.  The important thing is that he gives credit where credit is due.  And while i'd be lying if I said that I knew he did get permission from each artist, I also do not think that most artists would mind being used in his mashup, given that it has become quite popular over the last few years.

I often enjoy making fun videos for my final projects in classes if the guidelines allow it, and usually they are a combination of horrible lyrics, in this case rap, and other videos I find online with relevance.  So in this video I made, which is about government surveillance, I used a couple different videos that I found on the internet and added them into my own.  In this way I don't think that I necessarily took away from the message that each of these videos was putting across, but rather aimed them in a direction specifically catered to my own cause.  Don't judge too harshly.