The Hype Machine is an MP3 blog aggregator created in 2005 by Anthony Volodkin while he was a student at Hunter College. Fascinated with other MP3 blog websites, Anthony Volodkin aspired to create his own version of an MP3 blog site so that individual users could access, upload and blog about music. Before Anthony opened the site he sent his version to other MP3 sites for opinions and before he got a response, the site was uploaded without his permission. Thus the site was born. Since then the site has grown much in popularity receiving public notoriety CNN and others like Wired. Users can create an account which allows them to track the songs they “love”. Users can save their loved songs as well as create playlists that they can share with other users. Hype Machine is a commercial site but provides a stage for mash up tracks among a variety of artists. Music is paired with links to music providers and music labels. Users are allowed to listen to tracks on the site for free but in order to convert tracks to MP3 downloads, users must pay. The site does acknowledge copyright laws. The site is a collective work and/or compilation protected by copyright because it follows U.S. copyright laws, international conventions and other copyright laws. Any unauthorized content is pulled from the site, plain and simple. Following these guidelines allows the site to operate legally.
To me, the structure of the site is similar to Lessig’s idea of the hybrid he discusses in chapter 7 of our class textbook. There are commercial companies that utilize the site for profit purposes and then there also is freedom for customers to share media and content for their own enjoyment. In my opinion the site facilitates user generated content in the sense of posting comments as well as posting blogs. There is an aspect of Hype Machine that is a nice blend of RW and RO culture. I would say there is more RO culture represented on the site due to the fact that not just anyone can remix a song and upload it. If Lessig were to grade the site on its overall structure compared to his idea of an online market (in this case an online music website) that serves hybrid economies then I’d say he would give it about a C. In chapter nine Lessig lays out five reforms that would ultimately impact the content industry and make a site like Hype Machine even more like a “hybrid”. I’m going to discuss two of these reforms and explain how these changes could improve the site for the future.
Any content that is uploaded to Hype Machine must satisfy today’s modern U.S. copyright laws as well as any copyright laws, any amateur content is shutdown by the site. For this site, professional artists and labels take authority over amateur artists. Since work on the site is copyrighted, any user that attempts to download and then remix content will have to own up to the copyright holder. Lessig proposes to deregulate “amateur creativity” in the coming future. This would affect Hype Machine by allowing users to take tracks from the site, assuming they have the means to, and remix it. This is exactly what Lessig describes as an “amateur remix”. Right now the site operates more on professional remixes, professional tacks and amateur distribution by sharing songs that you can only access via the site and through legal downloads. Lessig would have the site allow professional/ amateur remixes of copyrighted material. What Lessig would not allow would be the act of users downloading “copies” of the material and then distributing the material for their own profit. He still believes that there should be rights owned by the copyright holder for copyrighted material to preserve economic incentives and priginal creativity. I have to say I agree with that. The only way Lessig would allow users to remix material and then upload their material for a profit would be if the amateur artist paid compensation to the artists that their remixed material came from. I think this is a fair and reasonable reform for this site. This would create more amateur creativity and would be respectful to original work. This is similar to the concept Lessig discusses in chapter 4 of our textbook about how we write but can be applied to this situation by allowing to “quote freely, with attribution.”
The second reform of Lessig’s I chose to discuss is deregulating the copy. Copies do not diminish the original work in anyway, the only thing that is diminished is the economic value of that particular copy. This fact alone is what triggers copyright laws. But I feel that Lessig is saying that the law should be more concerned with public distributions of copyrighted work and not with a single copy. Adopting this idea would widen the scope of material accessed in the content industry via the internet and increase amateur creativity simply because material is being shared. I think the effects a move like this would have a insignificant impact on the economic incentives of copyrighted work. A single copy download is far better, for both parties, than multiple copies being distributed. There is no doubt that these reforms would change the landscape of digital technology but I feel sites like Hype Machine are necessary tools to aid in amateur creativity. By improving copyright restrictions, not completely changing them, can help allow original works to be protected while at the same time allowing more freedom for amateur creativity. Amateur creativity helps to build and further our culture and is an important part of it.
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