THE COMPOSER The Making of Grand Theft Audio AN EXTRA READING BECOMES A TEACHABLE MOMENT Let me give you a little background. I was assigned to give an oral book report in a graduate seminar I was taking focused on teaching pedagogies. I overhead the prof say “(somebody) Lessig is a must-read for anyone teaching multimedia.” I thought, well, that’s what I do, so I chose Larry Lessig’s Free Culture to read and review. In Free Culture, Lessig explores the worlds of “Piracy” and “Property” when it comes to using images and other media and how these uses are influenced -- or not --- by our current copyright laws. The course assignment said that we were to teach the text—not by lecture alone—in 20 minutes. It sounded like a lot to accomplish in a mere 20 minutes. But, I thought maybe PowerPoint could help me teach 352 pages in that time span… PIRACY AS A PIRATE Lessig’s book is separated into two main sections: Piracy and Property. When I started reading Lessig on piracy, and he kept talking about how we were all breaking the law every time we right-clicked and downloaded a song or a picture or a font face, it didn’t take long before Judas Priest’s tune “Breakin’ the Law” started playing over and over in my head. That’s when my slideshow idea solidified. I wanted to make a mini-movie, complete with a soundtrack—using, of course, Judas Priest’s “Breakin’ the Law”—to help me present, situate, and analyze Lessig’s Free Culture. Interest piqued and creative juices flowing, I decided to discuss piracy as a pirate. This let me to think of this book report more as a conference presentation. I wanted to engage my audience, share examples and illustrations, and give a deeper awareness of the complex issues Lessig presents. Using Google image search, I quickly found images from Pirates of the Caribbean, jpegs of Priest’s album cover, animated gifs of rotating skulls, and public service announcements on illegal downloading. I knew I did not have permissions to use these images -- let alone the music; that didn’t matter to me at this point. I wanted to push the limits not only of PowerPoint, but also the limits of “right and wrong.” I wanted my audience to question our laws. I felt Lessig’s main theme throughout Free Culture was to question our laws; we must challenge their validity, and we must see them changed, but meanwhile, they are still our laws. I wanted this theme to be my theme throughout my mini-movie as well. PERUSING THE CREATIVE COMMONS VS. BREAKIN’ THE LAW The second half of Lessig’s book is about property. Lessig invented the Creative Commons. People use the commons to post media work they have created (music, videos, pictures, etc.), and they grant others the rights to use their work. So, Creative Commons is a place where we (artists, teachers, students, you, me) can go for resources where we don’t have to break the law. Creative Commons can keep us producing and remixing history while we advocate for change in our laws so that we can all use all of our cultural artifacts. Much of Lessig’s message seemed to be that our laws stink, but they are, nevertheless, our laws, and while we (patiently?) wait to get these laws adjusted to today’s digital contexts, we have to have some way to continue to make new and to remix old pieces of our culture. In my head, I played with the association between Creative Commons and work being free, accessible, and usable. It didn’t take but a couple of minutes before this line of thought led me to The Who’s song “I’m Free.” I imagined that using The Who to help discuss the Creative Commons would be a great way to thrash out issues of property. I thought I could show the ease with which we become pirates, right-clicking and committing crimes, and then I could transition into how to not become a pirate. “Breakin the Law” complemented the first part of my slideshow in a most engaging way—heavy guitar and hard-hitting drums, along with a damn-near-baritone voice, all matching the law-breaking going on within my PowerPoint. As GIFs and JPEGs—most copyright protected and none used with permission—danced across on the screen, Rob Halford and the boys of Judas Priest screamed about breaking the law. As my interest amplified and my research grew, I had more data than I had soundtrack. I had to find one more song. One day, while granting myself a bit of space from the project, I cleaned my apartment and listened to my iTunes (loudly). I heard the lyrics to a Beastie Boys song. My sons had visited over the summer, and had expanded my music menu to include the Beasties. The Beastie Boys were singing something about rhyming and stealing. Could that be, I wondered? No way. Too perfect. I decided to incorporate “Rhymin’ and Stealin’” into the center of my movie. This was a great fit. After I had the three key audiotracks for use in my slideshow, I wanted to work more on the design of the show itself. As suggested by a colleague, I searched for and added the font that Grand Theft Auto the video game uses as it’s signature typeface—it’s logotype. OBTAINING PERMISSION? YEAH, RIGHT! I didn’t seek permissions for the Grand Theft Auto font face, and I started and stopped my music-use permissions search quite abruptly. It seemed as if all the Internet searches I did took me to copyright.com which—for a fee—helps educators (and of course the business world) gain permission to use varied works. After a brief visit to their site, I determined that they were working with print materials, and that they’d not be able to help me with the audio files I was using in my project—even if I could afford them. But, who does hold the copyright-release abilities for Judas Priest, the Beastie Boys, and The Who? The artists themselves? The songwriters? The record companies? The RIAA? How does one go about finding this out? I was befuddled, and I deeply suspected that no matter how media-savvy the students in my classrooms were, this was an issue that would also likely befuddle them. LAWS VS. ETHICS When I showed this video instead of just giving a verbal overview of Free Culture, it sparked a 90-minute discussion that centered around fair uses but went into complete “copyleftism” as we discussed downloading movies and songs as well as what is and isn’t ok in the classroom. Even after the 90 minutes, grad students – other first-year writing teachers -- were still confused and still questioning the laws and still wondering what their rights were. They wanted to make sure they weren’t “Breakin’ the Law.” Some teachers couldn’t even agree on what aspects to cover in their classrooms, or what to teach and what to ignore, or why to even care. And while a classroom of grad students erupted in an edgy but productive conversation about the ethics of illegal downloading and what we can and cannot legally do, my video received kudos from one Prof and curtness from another. One wanted me to submit it; one warned me of what I had done. I didn’t realize the impact this video could have until a classmate asked could she show it to her class, and my teacher asked if I was interested in submitting to conference or to publication. Another TA asked to show it in her class. Wow! Didn’t I have too much illegal activity going on in there? Oh Sue you gotta publish they’d say. Not sure I can, I’d say. Not sure it’s legal. Not sure how to get the permissions to make it legal. Not sure of much of anything when it comes to copyright and Fair Use. It’s all so shady… Students love it because it’s engaging; it’s engaging because of the soundtrack. The soundtrack is the part of the piece that might not be Fair Use. The soundtrack consists of three published songs, and while I do own a legal copy of each of these songs (as required for Fair Use), I do also use them in their entirety (not usually allowed under Fair Use). But, the soundtrack is imperative; the soundtrack makes this movie. The soundtrack makes this movie a viable teaching tool–and a viable argument. It is because of its not-so-legal soundtrack that this movie engages its audiences. A SPACE FOR CHANGE For me, the Grand Theft Audio project was a space for change in me as a media artist, a writing scholar, and a teacher. As I researched Lessig’s views on our laws and how he vows our laws must change, I too began to change. I realized that there’s a monumental conversation that is not happening. Oh, lawyers and Lessigs are talking, some musicians are talking, a few designers and artists are talking, the RIAA and the MPAA and their teeming body of lawyers are talking. Some educators are talking. The whole world did talk about Napster for a few months. But these folks are talking in their own itty bitty local worlds and not globally, not holistically—not with one another. Maybe a way to promote change is to be change. I tried to be that change in my slideshow. I use the logos, the typefaces, the album covers, the pictures, the songs, and more to make a statement that it sure is easy to get and use all of these elements. But I also recognize that something’s got to give, and that there are alternatives to the current copyright regime. In the meantime, though, that monumental conversation I mentioned is not happening. I am not advocating that we all just right-click-save-file-as anything we want; I do advocate that change must occur. At the risk of cease and desist orders and lawsuits, I advocate for change with my slideshow Grand Theft Audio.