In the documentary film, RIP: A Remix Manifesto they enforced and educated viewers on copy right laws. The man making the documentary stated, “copy right laws gave rights to not only the authors but the public as well.” He also went on to say that copy right laws today are completely out of control. His goal was to make a mash up film with mash up music. This means making a documentary about DJ’s or people working with music who mash up old songs with a new up tempo beat. According to the law that is illegal because these individuals do not have permission to take songs from artsists such as Elton John or Pink Floyd for example. However, the sole fact that the documentary was being made with that music in it, also makes this remix documentary illegal.

DJ’s and people affiliated with mash ups call their type of music “sampling”. A type of group that demonstrated sampling in the documentary was, Girl Talk. This means that all the music they play and mash up is not theres, they just do their job by rearranging and adding components of different songs. It was said in the film that music like this “will always be against copy right laws”. Girl Talk’s argument to that is that their creativity is being limited but this can’t win their battle as copy right laws say, “you cannot argue creativity if it’s based on others”.

I found the point of this documentary to be very interesting because the purpose was for others to add on to it. They called this an “open source cinema” where the film could be mixed and remixed. It was said that students at a university made animated versions of the documentary to simply express their creativity. I feel as though this is a powerful way to show that copy right laws do limit our creativity. Movies such as RIP: A Remix Manifesto we are able to see how many people are interested in sharing the same view point in a different light. This also goes along with Girl Talk. They are not trying to take credit for any music they mash, nor are they disrespecting the artist. They have a passion for mashing up songs and making great music that people love. I feel like copy right laws have been limiting some areas of our society. I do not understand how the song, “Happy Birthday” can be sung all over the world and by anyone and that is ok because they creators are dead, but a DJ cannot mash up songs without being fined. That doesn’t make sense to me. People make music for others to enjoy it, and by having Girl Talk mash up a Pink Floyd song with a David Guetta beat isn’t going to make the listners forget where the song originated. What I liked most about this documentary was how it commented on our individual creativity. I agree that the laws are out of control and are limiting how individuals in our world express themselves. Girl Talk is not doing any one harm by playing and creating their music, I guess people forgot music was created to entertain and to be loved in the first place… wasn’t it?