Street Art: From All Sides & Five Continents

The urban anthropology of creativity, or why copyright law is a sad case study in swimming against the cultural current.

In 2008, Beautiful Losers — a documentary about contemporary street art culture from director Aaron Rose — made serious waves at SXSW. This year, the film is finally making its full-blown national screening tour — and we think it’s a must-see.

Based on the eponymous and equally excellent book, the film explores the creative process and cultural influences of iconic artists like Barry McGee, Jo Jackson, Mike Mills, Brain Pickings darling Shepard Fairey, and many more.

The greatest cultural accomplishments in history have never been the result of the brainstorms of marketing men, corporate focus groups, or any homogenized methods; they have always happened organically. More often than not, these manifestations have been the result of a few like-minded people coming together to create something new and original for no other purpose than a common love of doing it.

We think Beautiful Losers is important for two reasons: For one, it’s a genuine piece of cultural anthropology that captures some of the rawest, most powerful creative genius of our time.

But, more importantly, it’s a brilliant testament to the importance of the cross-pollination of ideas — you begin to see the influences of various subcultures, from skateboarding to street fashion to graffiti to indie music, on these artists’ original creative output. And this matters, because it’s real-life proof for the power of remix culture — something essential to the ability to harness our collective creativity, yet unfortunately hindered by current copyright law.

For an even deeper perspective on the global, cross-cultural influences in street art, check out Street World: Urban Culture and Art from Five Continents — another excellent book, exploring the emergence of a new global creative culture driven by the advent of the Internet as a cross-pollination platform for wildly diverse subcultures and modes of self expression.

Thanks, Amy!

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Scrabulous Down, Scrabble Downer

Why the if-I-can’t-have-it-you-can’t-have-it mentality produces nothing but a generous serving of loser.

SCRABULOUS DOWN, SCRABBLE DOWNER

What a week for the vocabulary-obsessed. Scrabulous fans are 32 hours into the offline jitters as Hasbro has finally pulled the legal plug on the lovable impostor. This time, it seems like all the group-joining, petition-signing, general bitching-and-moaning in the world will help.

Meanwhile, Hasbro has launched their own Facebook Scrabble application.

Or, erm, tried to.

Does anyone else see the utter irony and hypocrisy of it all? Here’s Hasbro‘s largely flawed logic: they can take down Scrabulous because it’s a rip-off of Scrabble, but Scrabble can go ahead and rip off Scrabulous on Facebook.

Because, really, who are we kidding? The true innovation at stake here isn’t in the age-old game itself, it’s in engaging with people where they are and how they choose to engage. And Scrabulous came up with that part — a true testament to the medium being the message. We bet a number of kids picked up the game of Scrabble from their experience with the Scrabulous application — good news for Hasbro, one would think.

Instead, Scrabulous fans are left bitter and disgruntled, possible converts to the Scrabble app are left high and dry, and we’re left thinking no one — not Hasbro, not Scrabulous, and certainly not us users — will get to put down a bingo in the end.

Here’s to another marketer grossly, severely, chronically not getting it.

Down With The Man | Part 7

How to do peer-to-peer sharing without entering Jesse James territory. Welcome to the Down With The Man issue: Part 7.

LEGAL AND WILLING

Speaking of things shaking the music industry, we couldn’t gloss over the huge and highly polarized issue of piracy. Worst part: it’s a vicious cycle. In a nutshell: a handful of big music retailers (a.k.a. “The Man”) dominate 90% of music sales; they exert pricing pressure on everyone else, asking consumers to shell out too much for music, most of which doesn’t even go to the artist due to brutal licensing deals; in turn, many music fans flip the bird and just download music illegally through P2P file-sharing.

But there’s actually a way to get free music through “file-sharing” that doesn’t make you an outlaw.

You may recall from pickings of yore services like Paperback Swap and SwapaCD — networks of everyday people who exchange books and CD’s they own via the mail. Now there’s a better execution to the same idea: swaptree, officially launched last July, is a similar concept, but has a broader media catalog — books, CD’s, DVD’s, even video games — and a massive member base of hundreds of thousands of users, with an astounding 30% monthly growth rate.

Seems like the newest media-shaker comes from the oldest medium of all: snail-mail, regarded today as barely a step up from pigeon post.

swaptree is free, simple, and here’s how it works: first say what you’ve got (build a “have” list of all the read books and old CD’s you’re willing to bid adieu), then say what you want (build a “want” list of stuff you’ve always been dying to read/hear/play). Then just sit back as the swaptree algorithms find you a trade and get the ball rolling. (We’re currently awaiting The Omnivore’s Dilemma, the brilliant book by one of our heroes, Michael Pollan.)

So how could all this be legal? Flashbacks of copyright class remind us about something known as the “first book doctrine,” a loophole in copyright law that allows you to transfer (for payment or not) a lawful copy of copyrighted work (like a book or CD) once you’ve obtained it. Everyday translation: whenever you buy, find, receive as a gift or get your hands on a book in other ways, it’s yours to do whatever you like with. Including swapping. And now it’s being applied to other media.

Sure, the big media dictators may not be happy. But in this power- to-the-people age, getting the latest from Postal Service through the postal service is an in-your-face constitutional right “the people” are learning to exercise…and lovin’ it.