“Erasing Dreamland” confronts issues of intellectual property management in the digital age, the phenomenon of socially networked video content, and contemporary cultures fixation with remixing and re-contextualizing the past.
“Erasing Dreamland” was created using found footage from Youtube in order to forge a digital homage to the analog techniques of the artist and film maker Bruce Conner, specifically his film “Take The 5-10 To Dreamland.”
The creation of this film lead to the erasure of Bruce Conner’s film from the YouTube network, “due to its content being used with out the artists permission.”
The film currently exists in copyright protection limbo, as the footage sampled was legally obtained from YouTube. As outlined within the terms of use agreement associated with uploading a video to YouTube, the content of Bruce Conner’s film existed outside the realm of copy protection while it was still present on their network, regardless of Conner not being the original poster of the film.
Furthermore, the copyright management status of the video enters an even stranger space upon the realization that both films were created using found footage. Conner was notorious as an artist for using found footage in his films that he would obtain at thrift shops and second hand stores (Bruce Conner Oral History). The digital recreation of “Take The 5-10 To Dreamland” was created by searching through the meta data associated with videos on YouTube and sorting through the resulting clips for bits and pieces that would sync in time with Bruce Conners’s film.
Work metadata
- Year Created: 2007
- Submitted to ArtBase: Wednesday Mar 14th, 2007
- Original Url: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5QFJcwZktw
- Permalink: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5QFJcwZktw
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Work Credits:
- Mark Brown, creator
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I'm Patrick Gleeson, the composer of the music for "TAKE THE 5:10 TO DREAMLAND" The composition and recording of the music, along with my title, "Take the 5:10 to Dreamland" preceded Bruce's creation of his and film was the inspiration for it. The music was not a work for hire. It enjoys a copyright, 100 percent of which I hold. I let Bruce use the music without charge because I knew I would enjoy and value the result. Our long collaboration--on four films in all, one of them scored by me and Terry Riley--never had anything to do with money or commerce.
I did not authorize Mark Brown to use this music; in fact I only recently discovered that he had. At that point I noticed youTube of the copyright violation and they removed the video.
I have no objection to Mark Brown’s restoring the video to youTube either without music at all or with someone else’s music. He’s written me and apologized for the copyright violation and I’ve responded both to him and to youTube that I have no problem with the video being shown on youTube once my music is removed.
Since the article this comments on was published, copyright issues continue to evolve.
One thing remains constant. Every piece of music I’ve created or helped create in a 50 year career that ever appeared anywhere, whether on my own albums, albums I’ve produced and played on or on film scores I’ve created is available on the internet for free. This is not exactly accidental; there is a kind of post-digital folk wisdom that believes “music wants to be free.” This has deprived me and every other composer and performer of income—in aggregate, probably billions. One piece I played on has been sampled on at least three platinum records that I know. The attorney for one of these groups advised me not to be so uptight about it.
I’m not uptight about it—I’m fucking furious. It’s this general atmosphere of hip thievery that prompts young creators like Mark to assume permissions or use payments are no longer necessary. This is bullshit and if you advocate this position you should be ashamed.