Remixing Without Remixing: Plagiarism and Kairos
Podcast:
This podcast is, I hope, somewhat more “actionary” than it is “reactionary.” Drawing on Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber’s “Plagiarism, Originality, Assemblage” (and a number of previous readings), I explore the boundaries of concept “remix.” My central question is this: What, if anything, is plagiarism from the perspective of kairos?
Music: Beethoven: Moonlight Sonata, movement 1, from amclassical.com, distributed under the Creative Commons license.
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Comments
Can of Worms!
James, you've opened quite the can of worms with this podcast to say the least. Plagiarism and Kairos together - I find your question at the end the most interesting. I'd like to consider what the idea of sampling brings to bear on your idea of kairos with plagiarism.
The sample is of course, in effect, a plagiarism of a previous song. For instance: Jenna's podcast brings up a sample at the level of theft with the famous Vanilla Ice affair. However, the question that comes up is, what *is* theft then? Is stealing a single snare hit from a song to work into your production a theft? What about a snippet of lyric?
http://www.onthemedia.org/episodes/2009/10/23/segments/143123 This episode of On the Media describes the current state of affairs as a sort of truce - where artists wish for you to ask for permission, and if they want it, pay for their work. (We could get into a discussion on Fair Use but I'll be avoiding it for now) However, the interesting problem is the way this can undermine what might be an otherwise kairotic moment: a DJ that realizes the way in which two songs/sounds can mix together.
The sample is a fundamentally kairotic event - a happy coincidence that a previous work somehow contributes to some new work (as you show in your 'sample' of Borges). Yet the interesting thing is the earliest of hip-hop artists didn't attribute their samples; whereas now when Kanye West samples Daft Punk he gives them a songwriting credit in the liner notes. I'm wondering if maybe attribution can undermine both the spirit and the Kairos of the sample.
Of course, this brings us to the weak defense arguments of Fair Use (which should succeed in court if sampling was ever tried under it. Interesting fact from OTM is early arguments about sampling never even considered Fair Use) - "how much" and "ill intent" questions. Is there a strong defense of sampling? I'll continue the chain of questions you began with one of my own.
-Peter