I am currently taking a required communication course entitled ‘Critical & Innovative Thinking”. Each week we have to write a response to a certain question/issue and then post it on the discussion board. Here is this week’s assignment. As I was writing, I realized this is an interesting topic, and worth sharing.
Assignment: How, in your view, does music both respond to and create social activism? In your response try to consider some of the issues relating to protest (social commentary) songs and songwriters (Green Day, Beastie Boys, Black Eyed Peas, Ani DiFranco, Rage Against the Machine, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie etc…) and to how copyright/commerce might affect an artist’s ability to address ethical concerns in our society?
I am going to begin by saying that I don’t know much about music, and am not a music person. I enjoy the old classical composers, such as Bach and Mendelssohn, and a number of the songs by contemporary Christian singers such as Keith and Kristen Getty and Matt Redman. As for any other music, I can’t say much. I am coming at this from outside of the music world and looking in.
Music both responds to and creates social activism. Or maybe I should state that as ‘creates and responds to social activism’. I believe that social activism originates from ideas, and those ideas are shared through many different ways; writing, protests, music, etc. Music is a very powerful tool in sharing these ideas, and eventually triggering and creating social activism. It is also highly emotional, which I think is why it is so influential. Music is also created as an expression of response to this activism. People respond in various ways to the ideas flowing around them, and once again music can be a specific person’s response.
Here is where the real issue comes in. We have established music is both a response to and creates social activism. What about those copyright laws? Considering them creates an ethical issue. Are we stealing or being creative when we use, alter or base your ideas off of someone else’s?
There is a reason why there are copyright laws regarding music. I agree that taking what others have created and using, altering or using their ideas as your starting point is technically stealing. It is breaking the eight commandment (
Exodus 20). In preventing this, those copyright laws are doing a good thing. But, do these copyright laws hinder us from being creative and from sharing and addressing other concerns in our society?
What are your thoughts?
The topic of creativity rises here. Is the using of another’s ideas true creativity? Is creativity completely original, or does it include working with what someone else has started, and making that so much better, and very much different? Does it include thinking beyond what someone else has started and creating something more wonderful from it? Is it fine if you cite the original author and market your version as an arrangement, alteration, or whatever you may call it?
This issue is relevant across all areas of creativity. I run into the same issues with my sewing business. I am sure graphic designers and photographers run into these issues as well. Never mind all of you music people.
What are your thoughts on the following?
1) Do copyright laws hinder us from being creative and from sharing and addressing other concerns in our society?
2) What really is true creativity?
