Category: Flog

This week I think I let my stubbornness get the best of me when we had the class debate on whether the Obama Hope Portrait was fair use. I think my background makes me always want to be on the side of the artist, so even if I thought the court would look another way I still wanted to stick to my guns. There were definitly moments during the class debate that I thought about switching, but I didn’t want to concede at all or abandon my “team.”

However, while I aknowledge that under the court’s definition of fair use the Hope image could potentially not be allowed. On my own philisophical perspective, I think that it is wrong to say that the artist did not do enough to change the photograph. As I mentioned in class, Justice Kagen’s dissent in the Andy Warhol Supreme Court Case is something I think about a lot in these discussions of fair use. She explained how “Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could, So somewhere in the copyright statute, there must be an ‘escape valve’ to create something good.” I agree with this statement completely. Whether we are aware or not everything we create is somewhat inspired or based off of something else, similar to what Lethem argues. It is with this awareness that I think that any creative who slightly adjusts something already made should get a level of leeway.

I do aknowledge that it is wrong to straight up copy the work of someone else and not give them any sort of compensation or credit. However, I think that as long as an individual makes some sort of thoughtful adjustment or alteration they should be allowed to use this new sort of work. I think ultimatley a big part of this problem stems from the capitalist economy we live in and the fact we feel that everything should be approached with some level of just compensation. With this awareness, it makes sense why Fair use has become such a thing, but when I really think about it, I think it is better to let people create freely without fear of “stealing from someone else.”

Its hard to isolate any particular failure from this week. The readings were the main engagement with the class, and they were challenging without a doubt, but I enjoyed the direction we went with our discussions of authorship this week. O’Shea’s arguments against the “if everyone does this, then nothing remains” logic was brilliant to read. I have been struggling to advance my own perspective on the issue since Hack 3 (GPT), and have felt that the distrust in people’s ability to synergise in a common-sharing environment is exaggerated, so reading O’Shea’s takes was brilliant.

If I were to discuss actual class-related struggles, they would be more in the domain of social anxiety and cultural differences with most of the other students. My philosophical approach to each topic does not focus on the same elements of the problem that US-centric perspectives do, since the unresolved aspects of such topics are usually different from culture to culture. This makes it harder to contribute to class or group discussions without changing the direction of the analysis completely, towards something the others may not find as relevant at all. I still do it, but I feel I must properly contextualize my comments/analysis first, which is impractical in the quick discussion formats,. For students who are used to the American lens on problems like authorship, the “location” of the problem does not need to be identified, it is a shared assumption, so the conversation jumps directly into sharing perspectives on that particular aspect of the problem. Since the conversations are meant to be fast-paced and follow a mostly predefined direction, this is not that problematic usually, but I do wish that open discourse without any bullet-points to be covered by class time, could be incorporated more.

Like last week, this was not the most eventful week. Other than the introduction of the newest hack, the idea of remixing was mostly discussed. I didn’t have many failures, but I did feel that I had some trouble getting through the readings. I made sure to get the main idea of the readings, but I don’t think I had a deep understanding.

Once the hack was announced, I spent some time thinking about what I would do…. but nothing came to mind. With something so broad and requiring different forms of media, I found myself veering off into a direction that wasn’t the hack. It will definitely take some more work shopping, but I think I will eventually figure out an idea. I want to have one before (preferably) the weekend is over. I may scrounge up some old Minecraft game play footage of mine from years ago, or even take some time to find songs and videos that remind me of earlier times — the year 2012 is a target I’d want to replicate.

Actually, while writing this Flog, I’m started to get some ideas… hopefully they turn into something. I think story boarding will be a necessity here. We will see.

This week wasn’t particularly filled with many failures, at least any academic ones pertaining to class. I had general failures with sleepiness and exhaustion (as this week has been insanely busy), but as far as course content, ideas, and materials, I had a generally easy time understanding and applying the concepts of remix, fair use, and commons that were discussed in class this week. I particularly enjoyed our discussions around remixing and the rhetorics / arguments of remixing on Tuesday as it exhibited the medium’s quality to be used for more than something just entertaining. Granted, many remixes and parodies are often made for simply entertaining, surface level reasons (Shining trailer, Star Trek ships), but looking at the different arguments that they can make was quite insightful. With that being said, I am looking forward to Hack #4 and what I will create. I am definitely going to do something with sound, but I am also planning to branch out in other mediums if possible. I am also curious to see which rule I end up breaking!

This week’s discussion about music copyright gave me a lot to think about. I’m taking a music theory class this semester, so I’ve learned that many chords are used repeatedly, and combinations of notes within a key have already been explored by composers across different eras. Because of that, even though some songs sound incredibly similar, it’s entirely possible that the resemblance is just a coincidence.

I tried to put myself in the shoes of both the original creator and the person accused of copying, and it feels like both sides make valid points. There are legal guidelines that specify how much similarity in a piece of music can be considered plagiarism, and I think that sounds like a fair way. If it’s really an unconscious similarity, it wouldn’t be many of them. For example, when I first heard Gotthard’s Fist In Your Face, my immediate reaction was that it reminded me of Bon Jovi’s In And Out Of Love. The latter is a well-known glam metal song, but in this case, it was just a sense of déjà vu. The discussion around reusing one’s own work and whether that could lead to copyright issues was also interesting. I assume using your own writing, like a paper you wrote, should be fine. But if you’re in college, professors expect you to put effort into each class individually. So I understand why some professors might find it inappropriate to reuse work from another course. I know many songwriters enjoy reusing bits of their own material, and it usually doesn’t cause any trouble. So in the end, I think it really depends on the context.

1. I definitely think I have a problem with turning in the Flogs on Fridays. I’m now setting up my agenda to submit them on Thursdays instead, because I’m frustrated that this is my second or third time missing a Flog post. I’m especially frustrated because, up until my junior year of college, I had never missed an assignment. I’m taking this as a sign to adjust my routine and be more proactive moving forward.
2. Other than that, I feel like last week was pretty light in terms of classes, since we had no major assignments to turn in. I would say I had a bit of a hard time reading the comic—I might be biased, as I tend to avoid comics for no particular reason. I think it just took more time than I expected, since there was so much interesting information to take in. That said, I appreciated how the comic presented complex ideas in a more visual and engaging way. It challenged me to step out of my usual reading habits, which I think is ultimately a good thing.

This week was a little hard to write my flog, as I feel like there wasn’t exactly something I was working on and was having trouble with. For this flog, I have decided to do a reflection on the things we have learned this week, which is copyrighting in different sorts of media. I found this interesting as I always catch on to similar sounding songs but never thought too deeply into it. I was never sure if that was allowed, they paid to use a similar beat, or was just outright copying it. After the activity in class where we had to compare two similar songs and see the history behind them and potential lawsuits, it got me thinking about other songs. One notable one which I have heard recently is the song “Anxiety” by Doechii (2025). This song has the same exact beat as “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye (2011). I looked into this and apparently Doechii had sampled Gotye’s song and rapped over it, and then self-released to YouTube in 2019. A few years after Doechii released her cover, the rapper Sleepy Hollow used the hook from the chorus to make his own track of the same name in 2023. Doechii officially released “Anxiety” in 2025. What I found more interesting was that this beat is not copyright owned by Gotye. Most of us associate this beat with Gotye and “Somebody That I Used to Know”, but it actually is sampled from “Seville” by Luiz Bonfá, and the copyright for the song is held by Top Dawg Entertainment. It was interesting to look into this myself and see the artistry world and the connections between all of these songs.

This week I am failing to find inspiration in what exactly to include in my flog. I think that I learned a lot this week in thinking about remixes and such. It was really interesting to think back about copyright and how it has become bloated. My sister is in law school right now learning about copyright law and she explained to me how there are so many things that I could put a copyright on, for example tweets. I find this super interesting and a cool concept, but I also see how engaging with copyright in such a way would continue adding to its excessive bloat.

In my reflections on copyright this week and discussions with my sister, I also realized that there is a lot I still need to learn to better understand copyright because in class I confused it for trademarks. I still think I need to read up more to better differentiate between the two concepts.

I was also inspired by class on Thursday in listening to the songs claimed to copy another and Jacob’s opinions on how the chords and such are overused and it not being a true copycat. It inspired me to try and better understand music and learn to have a better ear because I was not catching the same details, nor had the same awareness.

This week we talked about originality in writing and music, and what is considered ‘stealing’ or plagiarism. I really liked the comic reading, the other readings were a little more confusing but still very interesting. Before the readings this week I hadn’t heard about any of the theft accusations between different songs so that was interesting to learn about. I have very conflicted feelings about what is considered ‘theft’ according to some of the cases we looked at. I think being inspired by something and transforming parts of it to make it your own is just part of the creative process, but clearly the law thinks otherwise in some cases. 

I’ve also been thinking a little about what I’m going to do for the next hack. I haven’t done a lot of intentional remixing so I think it will be very fun. Hopefully we get some examples in class because aside from collaging or maybe some video editing I don’t think I have a broad enough view on what can be considered a ‘remix’ and I would like to see how far it can be pushed between mediums.

This week was very interesting to me, and I found myself really stopping to think. The readings for Tuesday were dense, but I really appreciated how they directly played off of one another, with one being a commentary on the previous. I absolutely loved Jonathan Lethem’s piece. His examples about music and cartoons were things I had never previously thought about, but really opened my eyes to what originality really means. Also, not knowing that his paper was patchwork until the very end was a weird experience for me. To know that everything I had just read was a combination of all these different creators made me question everything honestly. Even if we think we have an original idea, is it really? It is probably based on everything we have picked up in the world around us. This piece also made me realize that originality and technology have an inverse relationship in my head. As technology and access to it increases, true originality and unique ideas decrease. This is something I continued to think about during the other readings. Goldsmith had a lot of interesting commentary in regard to the influence of digitalization on originality. I also really enjoyed the comic reading, and I wish I could have been in class because I am sure Jacob would have had really cool insights into the music world, as it is something I am quite unfamiliar with. I also just thought the format was really cool, and I have never come into contact with a truly academic piece using this format.

I feel like this Hack will be really hard for me because this whole week, I struggled to know my own opinion on this topic. I would read one thing or hear one person’s perspective and think to myself, oh yeah, that makes sense, but then I would see the other perspective and also agree. For me, the feeling of this week was intriguing but questioning. I also felt like during these readings I would start thinking about a point the author made and then read the next 5 pages without actually digesting anything because I was thinking about a previous statement. I think I need to do a better job of trying to digest and separate so I can read and then fixate.

Without a project this week, I challengd myself to better understand remixing. I’ve always known that “originality” is a deeply philosophical concept, but this week, I started to grasp just how extensive this idea can be.

Interestingly enough, as I mentioned in class, remixing brought a scene from Heretic to mind. Reflecting on this film, alongside this weeks readings, made me realize that remixing isn’t simply a way of extending someone else’s work—it actually serves as a fundamental practice shaping society itself. Religion and myths echo each other across cultures, societal structures mirror and influence one another globally, and the idea of pure originality feels abstract.

Goldsmith’s exploration of ‘appropriation’ especially stuck with me. Appropriation has become a charged term, tied closely to issues of misrepresentation and cultural insensitivity. Goldsmith positions appropriation as a central, even principal, literary practice—particularly heightened in the digital age. His perspective pushed me to confront complex questions: When is appropriation beneficially exploratory, and when does it cross into cultural disconnection or exploitation?

Goldsmith argues for appropriation’s artistic legitimacy, highlighting its historical roots in visual arts and suggesting ways this practice could inform literary practices. Yet, I’m still left wondering about boundaries. How do we navigate the line between respectful exploration and cultural insensitivity?

This week ultimately reminded me why these questions are worth wrestling with. Remixing, originality, appropriation—these concepts are more intertwined and complicated than ever before.

For anyone interested in some relevant clips from Heretic, I’ve included two here. One scene explores how religions can be framed as remixes of each other, and the other explores the copyright saga of “Creep”.

LF