Fair Use

From a legal perspective, Girl Talk is remarkable — he isn't in jail. To us, it means copyright laws will never be the same, that they have in fact already changed and are just waiting for everybody to notice, like a teen airing a new ribcage tattoo. Of course, Girl Talk is not a political firebrand like early clip-rippers Negativland. Plus, he laid Biggie Smalls over Elton John. And, hell, just look at him, huddled over his rig, the kids crammed around him, everybody sweating, throwing handfuls of their college money, screaming. You don't put that in jail. You put that on the Grammys. The man behind the mash-ups, though, is remarkably astute on the politics of it all — his brain is a highly tuned thing due to years studying tissue engineering — arguing fair use and proclaiming pop love. In filmmaker Brett Gaylor’s doc about this brave new era, RiP: A Remix Manifesto, Girl Talk gets poked and prodded as a "test case," with people like Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig chiming in on the debate. Tonight, watch the director’s final version — it’s been available online for remix for quite some time — and celebrate your copyleft music freedom with sets by mash-up DJs Adrian and Mysterious D and video mash-up wizards Eclectic Method.
Thu., July 23, 7:30 p.m., 2009