Reflection "We Live in Public"

This week in class, we watched a documentary called “We Live in Public”. This documentary allowed the viewers to enter into the life of one of the greatest Internet pioneers, Josh Harris. Josh Harris moved to New York at a young age with only 900 dollars in his pocket and a vision that would soon turn him into a millionaire. Mr. Harris was simply a brilliant man in every way possible but his genius was so overwhelming that it drove him crazy.  He went from his company Jupiter to Pseudo.com to his masterpiece, Quiet. Quiet was an underground bunker that Harris created for a social and media experiment. The bunker was apart of his experiment to test how people would react as cameras watched them 24/7. In the bunker, there was a church, bar, gun shooting range, kitchen, dining room, showers, and a hotel. There were cameras surrounding the bunker that captured every move the participants of the experiment made. As days went by, the participants became mentally unstable and annoyed with each other and the cameras. On January 1^st, the bunker was shut down by police officers and participants were told to go home. After the bunker experiment, Harris was not quite finished yet. He began an intimate relationship with one of his co-workers, Tonya and they made a mutual decision to live in public. They lived in public by putting cameras throughout their apartment and streaming it online for everyone to see. Viewers were able to watch the couple eat dinner, use the restroom, have sexual intercourse, and get dressed for their day. The viewers were also able to comment on the activities the couple did throughout the day.  In the beginning, living in public was a fun event for the couple but it slowly pulled them apart until one day Tonya left the apartment, the relationship with josh and her life in public.  With only Josh living in public, the viewers became very bored and uninterested. Josh lost multiple viewers everyday until he barely had any at all. Soon Mr. Harris realized that he had lost his girlfriend, the significance of living in public, and his whole fortune. Mr. Harris finally shut down the cameras in his apartment and instead of living in public, he lived in private. He left New York and never returned again.

From the documentary, I felt that Josh Harris had too much knowledge for one human being to handle. He is a very strange man with odd visions that he calls art. He called himself an artist in the film because of his underground bunker creation and it was indeed a masterpiece. Although it was a masterpiece, it was an absolutely insane idea and I am very surprised Josh Harris was not arrested. But overall I really enjoyed the documentary and felt it was the perfect movie to watch for our class.

A Sample of History

In 2010, Copyright Criminals was produced by Benjamin Franzen and Kembrew Mcleod. The film provided in depth information about sampling from artists and well needed terminology. It also explained the benefits and troubles of music sampling and its collision with copyright laws.  Music sampling becomes a record and a record is apart of history.

After watching the film, I had several opinions to emerge in my mind. These opinions were both positive and negative. I explained my opinions as I answered the following questions.

1.      In your opinion, is sampling a form of copyright infringement? Explain your position.

       

      In my opinion, I believe sampling music is not copyright infringement if the artists received permission from the artists who made the original track.

     

2.      Do you agree that, as we stated in the film, Hip Hop’s sampling is no different from other artistic work? Why or why not?

      

      Yes, I completely agree that sampling is no different from other artistic work because as the artists said a D.J. to the instrumental is the painter to the photographer. A turntable has become an instrument by the way it samples other songs to create a new song.

3.      Do legal actions against sampling limit the exposure of artists whose work is sampled or do these artists protect the artists’ interests? Explain why you feel that way.

I think that sampling can either help or hurt the artists’ exposure because in some cases artist sales increase dramatically especially if being sampled on another popular artists’ song or a hit television shows like Glee. But on the other hand, sales can decrease if the other artists’ song receives more attention than the original. I feel like when this happens, the original artists should receive some of the profit from the song. There should be a written agreement or contract among the artists to eliminate any dram that may occur.