The Minute Memes project: reframing copyright restrictions one idea at a time, through a series of short, captivating, classroom-ready videos by award-winning artist and animator Nina Paley.
Copying Is Not Theft (Minute Meme #1)
Note: Copying Is Not Theft, by Nina Paley, is the first meme of our Minute Memes series. It was supported by a grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation.
Released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license.
(Also available in Ogg format.)
SUBTITLES:
- Arabic (SRT format)
- Catalan (SRT format)
- English (SRT format)
- Spanish (SRT format)
- Portuguese (SRT format)
- French (Can someone convert this to standard subtitle SRT format? Let us know in a comment here.)
- Italian + English (together) (Italian also needs to be converted to SRT format...)
Other formats:
HI RES:
Musical Rearrangements
- "Copying Is Not Theft" song as rearranged by Subhi Khanna and Gurpreet (not synced with the video).
This is a DRAFT of our first Minute Meme. A "draft" because the audio track is a placeholder, and we're eager to hear what all you musicians out there can do with it. There are some blank credits at the end for "Arranged and Recorded by" and "Sound Design." Any interested musicians/sound designers can re-release the whole thing with their own tracks and appropriate credits. Add and remove credits as needed (but leave Nina Paley's credit, of course). If you don't add sound effects, cut out the "Sound Design" card; if you want to credit additional voices, add a card for them. The fonts are Gill Sans and Gill Sans Ultra Bold. Be sure to keep the CC-BY-SA symbols on all the credits — you'll be releasing your modifications under the same license.
As of Dec 31st, 2009, the standout among the arrangements is this punk-surrealist remash by Norman Szabo:
What will 2010 bring?
If you make a new soundtrack, please let us know in the comments here. We strongly recommend replacing Nina Paley's placeholder vocals with your own — she used deliberately clear, formal enunciation to make it easy to understand the words, but never intended for her voice be on the final soundtrack. Please just replace it; don't be shy!
Here are the lyrics:
Copying is not theft.
Stealing a thing leaves one less left
Copying it makes one thing more;
that's what copying's for.Copying is not theft.
If I copy yours you have it too
One for me and one for you
That's what copies can doIf I steal your bicycle
you have to take the bus,
but if I just copy it
there's one for each of us!Making more of a thing,
that is what we call "copying"
Sharing ideas with everyone
That's why copying
is
FUN!
This track is 90 (or 180) beats per minute. The animation is 24 frames per second, with one beat every 8 frames.
There's a great video of Nina Paley singing the song at a DIY conference — maybe worth watching to get a sense of how she hears the song in her head:
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Re: Copying Is Not Theft (Minute Meme #1)
Hi, it's tzitzimitl again
Here's my new "jazzy tzi" version : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD9cdJ6vlMI
Re: Copying Is Not Theft (Minute Meme #1)
Hey, I really like this arrangement and harmonization! Nina, have you heard this yet?
Re: Copying Is Not Theft (Minute Meme #1)
Another piano version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-_uxRPBydc
Re: Copying Is Not Theft (Minute Meme #1)
Hi Nina !
It's Tzitzimitl from the day of free cultures in Bordeaux
I love your little song and I'm trying to help it to be known by french musicians and CC supporters.
To do that I uploaded it to dailymotion (more used by french people than youtube and more CC friendly as long as I know) and I made a few sound designs with it... more is coming.
Here's a piano version : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx5ThHINfYg
And a 8 bits version : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3bmP5MOwaI
Here's the videos in dailymotion : http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xc75ad_copying-is-not-theft-copier-n-est-p_creation
Bye !
Tzitzimitl
Re: Copying Is Not Theft (Minute Meme #1)
Oups ! I forgot that :
I made a srt file with a better french translation in my opinion :
Here's the file
Tzitzimitl
Re: Copying Is Not Theft (Minute Meme #1)
French subtitle :
1
00:00:01,350 --> 00:00:04,800
Copier ce n'est pas du vol.
2
00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:08,500
Copier ce n'est pas du vol.
3
00:00:08,750 --> 00:00:11,500
Voler c'est léser quelqu'un
4
00:00:11,800 --> 00:00:14,000
Copier c'est crée une chose en plus;
5
00:00:14,250 --> 00:00:16,500
c'est pourquoi nous copions.
6
00:00:16,900 --> 00:00:19,000
Copier ce n'est pas du vol.
7
00:00:19,250 --> 00:00:22,000
Si je copie le tien, tu l'auras encore
8
00:00:22,200 --> 00:00:24,750
Un pour moi et un pour toi
9
00:00:24,700 --> 00:00:27,000
C'est ce que la copie peut faire
10
00:00:27,500 --> 00:00:29,700
Si je vole ton vélo
11
00:00:29,750 --> 00:00:32,000
Tu dois prendre le bus,
12
00:00:32,250 --> 00:00:34,900
mais si je le copie juste
13
00:00:34,900 --> 00:00:37,100
il y en a un pour chacun de nous !
14
00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:40,300
Crée plus de quelque chose,
15
00:00:40,300 --> 00:00:43,300
C'est ce que l'on appelle "copier"
16
00:00:43,500 --> 00:00:45,700
Partagez ses idées avec tous
17
00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:48,000
C'est pourquoi copier,
18
00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:50,500
est AMUSANT !
Re: Minute Meme #1: Copying Is Not Theft
I made another one! Sorry, but I couldn't stop myself -- you've created a monster! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coFRLYZPvDI (And btw you know this comment input form is still totally broken, right?)
Re: Minute Meme #1: Copying Is Not Theft
I've tweaked the comment input form to be less broken. It's still not as easy to use as I'd like, but I'm waiting for Drupal to get a really smooth WYSIWYG form editor, sigh (I've literally tried them all now, and none quite do the job. It's apparently a hard problem).
Re: Minute Meme #1: Copying Is Not Theft
I love it! Can't use it as the "official" meme, as it's not in synch and goes off on a very entertaining tangent, but I still love it. 5 stars!
Re: Minute Meme #1: Copying Is Not Theft
Hey there, Nina! Yeah, it was fun to do and I'm glad you like it! Shame you can't use it as the official meme, but, well, it will still be there if you change your mind. :-)
Re: Minute Meme #1: Copying Is Not Theft (Idiom Creak remix)
Thank You so much for making this! I LOVE the song.It's the best thing I've heard in SOOO long.I had to do music-and-sound to it (oh yeah, added a little voice too)....I started as soon as I first saw it, and ended up staying up all night to finish.SEE WHAT I DID: http://www.vimeo.com/8260249 I'd love to work with you (more directly) at some point in the future too. I do animate as well. Yours is absolutely Lovely!You're an incredible artist. Keep up the good work!All the Best,Michael Rosen (idiom Creak)Samplistic Mediawww.samplistic.com
Re: Minute Meme #1: Copying Is Not Theft
Here you go -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU7axyrHWDQ. Enjoy! (btw, I tried to add this as a video response to the original, but it doesn't seem to have worked. Maybe it's pending or something?)
"Jazzy" remix of "Copying Is Not Theft" and video quality
This remains my favorite of the remixes I've seen so far. I frankly didn't think Nina's voice recording would work that well, but after you've reprocessed it, it sounds pretty good (sounds like you added some reverb, which helps a lot).
The only thing that really bothers me about it is that you didn't synch anything to the bunny when he bursts through the FBI warning. I'm not sure what he's supposed to be doing, but his mouth is moving. Seems like it ought to just be "hey!" or something like that, but I never figured out what it should be.
I just noticed that YouTube has an "HD" option, which will probably give me a better quality video, but I was going to ask if you'd considered uploading an NTSC/DVD quality video to Internet Archive or some place similar?
I'm currently making a DVD ISO from some of Nina Paley's earlier work ("NinaVision"), and I used a version of this video as the "Menu Intro" video (it plays before the video -- the idea is that that's where a proprietary DVD might place an FBI warning). There were some noticeable transcoding artifacts though, presumably due to using a low-quality video source -- it would be nice to work with higher quality video.
(I will try with the "HD" flv video from YouTube and see if it gives me better results, though).
Re: Minute Meme #1: Copying Is Not Theft
Hi Nina,Cool video.I was wondering if you had approached anybody at www.indabamusic.com with this? It seems like a resource that could really work for you. Thanks for making awesome thingsKevin
Re: Minute Meme #1: Copying Is Not Theft
I love the video Nina. I wish I knew something about music and could help out! Thanks for all the hard work. We're all looking forward to Minute Meme #2, etc.
Re: Minute Meme #1: Copying Is Not Theft
I love the video Nina. I wish I knew something about music and could help out! Thanks for all the hard work. We're all looking forward to Minute Meme #2, etc.
Re: Minute Meme #1: Copying Is Not Theft
Delightful song and animation. Could you please post a version in a patent-free video format like Ogg Theora?As it stands we can legally copy this file as much as we like, but we can't play it without either breaking patent law or surrendering our freedom to proprietary software.
Re: Minute Meme #1: Copying Is Not Theft
Hi,
I transcoded it into OGG Theora:
http://www.etenilsrealm.nl/Copying_Is_Not_Theft.ogv
Re: Minute Meme #1: Copying Is Not Theft
Archive.org should be auto-compressing it into free formats.
Re: Minute Meme #1: Copying Is Not Theft
There is no OGV version of the video on archive.org
Re: Minute Meme #1: Copying Is Not Theft
What the? I get the meaning of the catchy little ditty -- copying not harming the owner. The implication (or my inference) that copying is not harmful is too much of a reach. See, you're only looking at it from the point of view of the consumer, who views the thing being copied as the thing owned. The law is about the point of view of the content creators, who view the right to distribute the thing being copied as the thing owned. Handing somebody a copy of something -- say, a movie -- decreases the likelihood that that person will buy that thing. It's not a straight correlation -- the recipient may never have purchased that thing anyway, or perhaps receipt of the copied work may actually inspire the recipient to go purchase the original -- but it's probably safe to say that overall, recipients of copies will be less likely to make purchases of originals. Therefore, the right to distribute is harmed, because the audience is decreased. So, from the point of view of the content creators (the group whom copyright law was created to protect), copying does in fact equal harm. The copiers are stealing the right to distribution.Bias disclaimer: I fall more on the fair-use side of the argument than the DRM side, but I think that this argument is too weak to use to impugn existing copyrights.
You've read a lot into it
The words and pictures are very simple: copying is not theft. Anything else you find in the cartoon, you put there yourself. Thus proving "consuming" art is a highly creative act.
Re: You've read a lot into it
Heh, but without 'creatively listening' to it, one thing it makes reasonably clear is that it mixes musical CD's with bycicles. As if they've never heard of illegal distribution, being actual theft, and ironically licensed the video itself under a creative commons attribution and non-commercial right of distribution.
Re: You've read a lot into it
You very creatively imagined "non commercial" there. Read the license, please. It's Share-Alike, all are welcome to sell copies.
We don't use non-commercial licenses because they're un-free and monopolistic, hardly different from copyright.
Re: You've read a lot into it
Ah, sorry. I should have read that properly. I do appreciate and admire free content wherever I can get it, but if it's otherwise unfair molopolising, I don't think it should risk hard working musicians losing from a $2 million dollar album just because people wanted to hear it without paying anything or giving right. Though I know record companies have a lot to do with those. I really wish donations were a lot bigger and widely used these days. It would makes things so much easier for me, personally. Anyway, I guess I should say 'catchy song' because seriosuly, I can't get it out of my head.