RIP - A Remix Manifesto

RiP - A Remix Manifesto

Immerse yourself in the energetic, innovative and potentially
illegal world of mash-up media. Web activist and filmmaker
Brett Gaylor explores the concept of copyright in the era
of Napster, Bit Torrent and peer-to-peer file sharing. The
film is built around a manifesto drafted by Lawrence Lessig,
founder of Creative Commons: “Culture always builds on
the past. The past always tries to control the future.
Our future is becoming less free”.
To build free societies you must limit the control of the
past. RiP’s central protagonist is Gregg Gillis, a biomedical
engineer who moonlights as Girl Talk, a mash-up artist rearranging
tunes into entirely sample-based songs. Is Girl Talk
a paragon of people's power or the Pied Piper of piracy?
Gaylor and Girl Talk sound an urgent alarm and draw the
lines of battle. Brazilian musician and former Minister of
Cultural Affairs Gilberto Gil and others join in. Where do
you stand?

Brett Gaylor is a documentary filmmaker and new media
director. He is the creator of opensourcecinema.org, a
video remix community which supports the production of his
feature documentary RiP: A Remix Manifesto. Gaylor is one
of Canada’s first videobloggers and has been working with
youth and media for over 10 years.