Video games are often developed and published with a very one directed gameplay mindset. There is usually a storyline that the player is taken through or the game is player-vs-player (PvP) where players compete against each other through various game mechanisms. Most storied games do not have a creativity component to them, for they take the player through the storyline and ultimately deliver the final outcome. However, the combination of the story component and the player creativity together can in itself create a unique gameplay experience that is truly one of a kind. As we started to learn about multimodal literacies in the class, the idea resonated with me in the manner I used to play one of my favorite video games back in high school. Grand Theft Auto Five (GTA V), created by Rockstar Games, originally is a story mode gameplay, with established characters that have depicted storylines associated with them. The game itself exists of different missions, through the eyes of the established characters, to further allow the players to experience the character’s lifestyle and progress through on with the gameplay. GTA V, however, has been transformed by many other groups and the game is not played across different platforms, with unique and creative ideas that even the creators of the game did not envision. GTA V quickly established the online multiplayer (GTA V Online) component to it, for users could connect to online servers with their own economies and mechanisms unique to each server. Players also got the opportunity to go through unique missions, pertaining to each of these servers, and building a player reputation of theirs on the server. From there on, Rockstar Games released a mobile app version of their game (GTA V Mobile), that allowed players looking to stroll around and enjoy the GTA’s customary belief of violent free-for-all activities, to do so on the game. As both these segments of the original game gained traction amongst players around the world, creative minded developers (also players) started to augment the game mechanisms and ultimately brought forth what we call GTA V Roleplay today. GTA V Roleplay gives users the opportunity to develop their own character and a storyline, along with the realism of being actual life – with housing structure, cell phone service, economy, criminal sentences, fatigue, etc.

GTA V Roleplay has been able to gauge a significant amount of streamers away from the popular games, the same games which originally drove these top streamers away from the GTA community. Dexerto, one of the largest esports news and new media entertainment networks, explains how the viewer base traction has been pivoted away from the popular games. The article says, “After its initial spike in popularity back in early 2018, many Twitch streamers had stopped making use of the roleplay servers in GTA V to broadcast other trending games such as Fortnite, however this recent wave of streamers returning could be good news for GTA fans” (Cleary 4). Streamers like Lirik, mentioned in the article, have drifted away their consistent thirty-thousand viewers away from games like Fortnite and built forth the user dependency through their own character’s story. Similarly, this perception has been widely acclaimed in the gaming industry. A custom server, made by a fellow player of GTA V, has truly redefined the Twitch gaming industry – taking away players from billion dollar companies like Epic Games. And, the best part is that the GTA V Roleplay platform is currently free as well. Kotaku, a video game blog website, reported a similar sentiment, “These streams have put GTA V in league with Fortnite in terms of viewers and led to the formation of an interconnected streamer cinematic universe that is effectively akin to 10 concurrently running 24/7 television comedy dramas” (Grayson 1). This domain of GTA V today is really taking on other games, competition to which Rockstar Games never imaged their product would ever compete directly with. Furthering into the GTA gameplays, GTA V Online has also gone through significant transformations that have allowed the original GTA V storyline to have been modified. Engadget, a multilingual technology blog network with daily coverage of gadgets and consumer electronics, stated, “GTA Online has more in store for the next DLC set to release later this month includes races with transforming vehicles, a marked-for-death mode and aerial dogfights” (Lumb 1). As the RP segment of GTA has gained traction, the multiple online platform has frantically adding features and mechanisms as well in order to provide a unique experience for the users. This in itself keeps a constant push and pull on going within the GTA V community, forcing players and developers to come forth with newer mechanisms for better entertainment.

As part of my research, I went out to understand who the top Twitch streamers playing GTA V RP truly were. In order to better understand about their character’s back story and the platform, I went online to look for such information. Dot Esports, the leading Esports news platform, had an article featuring GTA V RP and all the top characters currently on the platform. Dot Esports exposed me to characters like Avon Barksdale, Bogg Dann, Kiki Chanel, and Lang Buddha – the characters I ultimately utilized in my remix as well (Goodling 2-3). This news article also provided me the Twitch channel names for these characters, ultimately leading me to the behind-the-scenes player that played the role of such characters. I further watcher their videos and clips both on Twitch and Youtube, and put together an interesting remix together. I started to notice myself that I was very much engraved into these Twitch streams as well, I have an urge every single day to come back and follow along with the respective character’s storyline the next day. To me, this is almost like watching a series of movies or shows, for you have something new to look forward to the following day. The Video Gamer website defines this type of gameplay as, “Grand Theft Auto V RP, thanks to the wonderful world of Twitch, is like reality TV without limits. It’s a celebration of improv. It’s what creative individuals can do if they put their minds together. It’s what the internet was made for (Webb 12-13).

For the project, I decided to create a website on Wix that expressed all the 4 gameplays of GTA V – story mode, online multiplayer, roleplay, and mobile. The goal of this website is to convey to the viewers the different mediums through with such a game is played today, as well give the readers the opportunity to explore more about each platform through the “read more” respective buttons. For the project itself, it is delivered using multimodal literacies – for there is an audio recording of mine expressing the evolution of GTA V, textual content to read about each gameplay, videos to see the gameplays in action, and lastly embedded websites that bring forth information from other websites and display to the user. In the class, we talked about how in, “The Difference Between Homage and Plagiarism”, the ideas of homage and plagiarism were demonstrated through real world examples. What we learnt from the article was that “every filmmaker has dabbled in some form of homage during their careers. The borrowing and retooling of ideas is a core part of what makes film tick” (Shields). This idea of borrowing and reinventing is what I utilized for the remixes that I created. I gathered together clips from Twitch and Youtube, and added forth music in the background to give it a catchy look. These remixes of mine stem well with what we reviewed in the class regarding “Star Wars minus Star Wars” as well, solely because I utilize different clips across different media pieces to bring forth a unique representation to the song “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” (Kallgren). The popular song I used in the remix definitely has a meaning and an official music video associated with it, however using my own interpretation of the song, I put forth the Kiki Chanel character with the song so her the character’s mindset in GTA V RP. Lastly, the delivery of my own voice recording was inspired from the article “Discourse, small-d, Big D” by James Paul Gee. James explained how, “When we speak or write we simultaneously say something (“inform”), do something (act), and are something (be). When we listen or read we have to know what the speaker or writer is saying, doing, and being in order to fully understand” (Gee 1999). This is the same type of ideology that I went ahead and employed in my voice recording – one that just does not tell a story, but one that takes the listener through the journey of the subject (GTA V in this case) and allows the listener to see the transformation of the function.

For the physical element of the project, I went ahead and created a cardboard imitation of the phone that is utilized in GTA V Roleplay. Tradtional GTA does not have cellphone functionality, however as part of the roleplay mechanism, each character has a unique phone number that is used to call each other. Characters are able to have very realistic-like calls in the server with other players. In a larger scope of this physical piece, I would like to develop a mobile app that demonstrates how the cellphone actually looks like in-game. Additionally, such an app would give viewers the opportunity to play through the button functionalities and better understand how the phone works in the game. For this project overall, the composing of the website took place on the platform called Wix. Wix is an online website creation tool that allows users to create and publish websites through easy-to-use mechanisms. In order to create the videos, I first searched on Youtube and Twitch to gather the videos and then downloaded them. From there on, I utilized iMovie to perform the editing and exporting of the videos. From peer review, I received feedback that the idea of transformation and creativity in GTA V was not expressed just from the website, that is when I added the audio component to better tell that story. Additionally, I had originally just planned on having text on the “read more” pages, however, after feedback from fellow peers and the instructor, I embedded other pages (whose information I was going to use otherwise) onto my website for a unique experience.

Research Works Cited:
Cleary, Daniel. “LIRIK Mimics ‘The Wire’ during Incredible GTA V Roleplay Stream on Twitch.” Dexerto.com, Dexerto, 12 Mar. 2019, http://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/lirik-mimics-the-wire-during-incredible-gta-v-roleplay-stream-twitch-446770.

Goodling, Luke. “These Are the Most Popular GTA V Roleplay Characters and Where to Find Them on Twitch.” Dot Esports, 4 Apr. 2019, dotesports.com/culture/news/most-popular-gta-v-roleplay-characters.

Grayson, Nathan. “Grand Theft Auto V Role-Playing Has Taken Over Twitch.” Kotaku, Kotaku, 18 Mar. 2019, kotaku.com/grand-theft-auto-v-role-playing-has-taken-over-twitch-1833307272.

Lumb, David. “Transforming Vehicles and Aerial Dogfights Are Coming to ‘GTA Online’.” Engadget, 6 Oct. 2017, http://www.engadget.com/2017/10/06/transforming-vehicles-and-aerial-dogfights-are-coming-to-gta-on/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADiXmfo4bMJuhGCaYZhspoFF2wtlwjJ_m6g45S0zhHs4XyarUZTY4SOa9DV7jmJuyeCjzaGS_m-mq-3gzSFxQWEcnJgPdWh5iEcbvZ-oe_Umj1l0hvj3zX8c2gMZp5lPUdtM2mUDV2fWcg1SU6ikROC6OZ0sIHx04iBC50IeRy0y.

Webb, Dan. “GTA V RP Is the Hottest Thing on Twitch Right Now.” VideoGamer.com, 28 Apr. 2017, http://www.videogamer.com/features/gta-v-rp-is-the-hottest-thing-on-twitch-right-now.

Throughout the semester, I worked towards Student Learning Outcomes 1 and 3. Specifically for outcome 1, I successfully built out a multimodal media piece for Major Project 3. The media piece utilized the power of audio, video, and textual content to keep the user engaged from all fronts. Additionally, it included a physical component relating to the topic, something that allows the user to connect better with the content. In the rationale for the project, I brought together sentiment analysis and news articles as supporting evidence to show the evolution of GTA 5 across different platforms. Today, the game is utilized in unique and creative ways, differently across the functioning platforms. I worked towards outcome 3 during the semester with learning about the different between plagiarism and homage. We talked extensively in the class about what the differences between the 2 are, as well as what are plagiarism verses copyright rules and regulations. The article that was my most favorite from the course was “Fortnite Keeps Stealing Dances – And No One Knows If It’s Illegal”. Being someone who used to play Fortine and knows a lot of about the dance moves that Fortnite is known to have made viral, never had I really thought or taken the perception that these dance moves were of some other artists’. This article was a great example of how in the media industry, the idea of feeding of other’s ideas and putting in your twist to it really make the ultimate outcome meaningful. Additionally, this allows for fresh content and competition to stick with the industry as well. My least favorite text from the course was The Principles of Sonic Branding” by Joel Beckerman because of how long and complex it was to understand the the ideologies involving sonic branding. I felt as though he talked about a lot of techniques, which is great, but after the first couple techniques I started to lose the writer. It got very confusing for me to keep track of all the techniques and ensure that I am able to bring forth an example for the. The most favorite project from this class has got to be Major Project 3. While it was still about the multimodal literacies, forcing us as creators to include an interactive component allows for the creativity to come forth from different mediums. It is truly amazing to see what all unique props people start to associate with their ideas, something you as an individual would not even think about. Lastly, the activity that I least enjoyed was when we were asked to make a short campaign video as a group in 5 minutes during the class. That activity as a whole did not go to serve any purpose to me personally, as I did not gain much value from it. While the activity’s purpose was to see if people can watch a video without sound and try to meaning out the context just from the video component. I personally think I excel in that front, hence did not learn much from it.

For the purposes of this Geocaching project, I decided to choose the “Beautiful Boneyard” cache located near the rocks at the Bardeen Quad. The location of this cache is right next to the Boneyard Creek, creating for a very peaceful view to sit and experience the nature. Unfortunately, when I went out caching, it was raining so I did not get to spend as much time as I would have liked to sit by the creek and admire the surroundings. Geocaches in general are definitely functions of rhetorical objects in the sense that they not only allow someone to physically interact with an object or location, but also allow the user the come forth with an experience of their own with it as well. The idea of geocaching is something I was exposed to as a result of this class, but something I find very interesting in bringing forth new experiences to individuals. In my specific geocache’s case, it was all about admiring the surroundings of the Engineering Quad and the Creek – something every person is going to have a difference experience with. I personally loved hearing the sound of the water stream, something I find peaceful listening to at times. The purpose of my geocache was to really allow people to expose themselves to this part of the campus that most people do not take the time to sit and ponder upon. I personally attend Grainger Library and other Engineering building on the Bardeen Quad often, however, I never actually took the time to admire the creek and admire the landscape that is present out there. This geocache allows people to diverge away from their daily grind, sit back, and relax while instilling themselves with nature. My cache had clues involving how you will not get dirty while trying to find the object, and how it is located between the bridge and a tree. Additionally, it hinted towards how it was about enjoying the landscape. All these clues definitely led me into the right direction of finding the spot that the cache was directing me towards, as well gave me the opportunity to experience the landscape from the viewpoint and location that it was intended to be. My experience all together was very interesting, I loved the exploring and hunting part of it. Working with the clues to move about the location to ensure I found the right thing, as well as just experience the little details apart from my cache object. Looking for the object forced my body to pay very close attention to the nature things that I usually would not on a daily basis. If I were to design my own cache, I would definitely create it in a similar manner how this one was. Instead of directing users to a library or a certain signing book type of a cache, I believe that human interpretation has great powers of helping users feel more connected and education from an experience. In my case, I would likely take the user to the courtyard area outside of Foellinger, and have them yell out something. This was lead them to understand how the courtyard outside Foellinger is actually a echo’d region, something that is a hidden fact about this university. A person’s voice echos like it would in a chamber, all the while presenting forth a one of a kind view of the quad.

*Please find the below pictures of my journey of getting from the Grainger parking lot, working through the clues, towards the final object. It was a stick with “locate” written on it, and it wanted you to experience the landscape from that specific location.

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I went ahead and watched the “Because The Internet” video for Childish Gambino to better understand the delivery of transmedia. At first glance, as an outsider, it seems very choppy and sometimes can lose a person. However, as I spent more time on it and rewatched it to put the pieces together, I actually understood the plot that the entire transmedia piece of trying to convey. The art of using different media pieces to connect forth towards a final storyline is truly unique. The idea of transmedia is something watchers like me would truly enjoy, due to the constant shift in scenes. As a very rare television watcher, my attention span to screen media is very short. If the media piece is focusing in on a single scene for a length of time, I often will zone out or just fast forward. For viewers like me, the idea of transmedia keeps the media piece very engaging with new scenes in different settings quickly. While I do not think the movie industry or the screen media industry in the future is going to switch to this type of a delivery sense, I do see transmedia going viral and picking up within the online community significantly just how memes and gifs are of craze today. Transmedia definitely is not the future of entertainment, but it will and has the potential of becoming one of the types of entertainment for people in the future definitely. It is a unique delivery mechanism, specifically across movies, when pieced together can bring forth a very interesting “remix’ of screen medias. In Childish Gambino’s case, he just does not use the songs from his one single album, but he utilizes songs from across his selection line to put forth a creative delivery piece. Often an artist’s album is focused towards one specific message, but using songs across albums and then working them towards a common message is truly unique. Just how there are currently mobile apps for meme and gif generators, I can see a whole new concept of a mobile app that can become very popular amongst the smartphone user population. An app that allows users to search certain scenes from media pieces or upload their own pieces, and the app algorithmically puts them in order to work towards a common message. That in itself is something that can be very unique and something I can see getting lot of talk around my community definitely. These short transmedia pieces can then be shared by users on social media platforms and other sharing means, ultimately gauging more interest in and popularizing this transmedia industry.

The article, “Fortnite Keeps Stealing Dances – And No One Knows If It’s Illegal”, by Nick Statt is a true definition of how today’s society, with the advent of technology, is left in a gray area of what plagiarism is and is not. The question raised in the article is regarding the dance moves that are present in the game Fortnite, and if the moves are in infringement on the copyright laws in the dance industry. The dance moves, as placed in Fortnite, are claimed by artists like Milly Rock to be their originals in their respective music videos. Fortnite, on the other hand, claims that while the moves are similar, the music behind them through which Fortnite conveys the dance moves is customly designed by Epic Games, the parent company and creator of Fortnite. For Milly Rock and other artists, the are suing Epic Games in order to have a revenue split that Epic Games is gaining from selling certain privileges to its users, in order to gain access to the popular dance moves. The Copyright Office, which is not the most up to date with ongoing trends in our social-bound community, does not define dance moves created by a certain individual or entity to be proprietary. They do not classify such dance segments as “choreographed’, hence not copyrightable. The debate really stands as to if creative originators can copyright their own sayings and dance moves, to which there is great battle of debate in terms of freedom of expression. If individuals would be given the permission to copyright their common-said moves and expressions, then the freedom of speech amongst the United States population would be very limited.

This ideas of plagiarism versus homage and plagiarism versus remix are very subjective topics that are debated in our society a tremendous amount. From the educational segment to screen production industries, the idea of plagiarism and copyright seems to bring itself back into the talks very frequently. With the advent of technology, access to information has been made tremendously ease and available at your finger tips. This freedom in accessibility then leads to the ideas of certain individuals and entities being influenced based on what is openly available, hence causing the talks of plagiarism and copyright. In INFO 303, we have talked significantly about the ideas of plagiarism versus homage and plagiarism versus remix – through examples portrayed through articles, videos, and podcast talks. Learning specifically from examples involving screen media, music, and clothing industries, it is clearly explained how the idea of knowledge sharing and people using each others ideas to augment them and bring forth new meanings is very common in the industries. In, “The Difference Between Homage and Plagiarism”, we clearly learnt from that article that “every filmmaker has dabbled in some form of homage during their careers. The borrowing and retooling of ideas is a core part of what makes film tick” (Shields). The TED Radio Hour’s “What is Original?” and Johanna Blakley’s “Does Copying In Fashion Keep It Fresh?” both seem to convey the same message – a message of how industries really thrive on individuals reigniting old content and twisting it into a new manner. For Johanna, she expresses how the fashion industry is ruled as a 3 dimensional design segment, one that is utilitarian and used to cover human bodies. She expresses, “One of the magical side effects of having a culture of copying is the establishment of trends” (Blakley 2:50). And this is very much true throughout the music, fashion, and all other consumer involved industries – the art of competition exists and contains as a result of new players in the market(s) using previous-day platforms and pursuing them in the today world with a shifted twist. Lastly, the concept of remix was introduced to us through the video, “Star Wars minus Star Wars”. It is a piece of art that is created as a result of using totally different and creative clips to deliver a similar message, of what is presented in the movie “Star Wars”. Instead of taking long video clips and audio files from the original movie, Kyle Kallgren develops an abstract delivery that utilizes clips and audio files from non Star Wars related content, to deliver the message of the original Star Wars movie. The creation of such a media piece is unique in its own media type.

The idea of transmedia storytelling is expressing an original piece of media through a different delivery medium, often not with the same storyline or plot either. This allows the viewer/reader to understand a different storyline involving the same general plot, ultimately allowing one to use the medias across these different mediums to finally develop a conjunction of all these storylines. As seen in the class, the Cinderella 2.0 video expresses how the different mediums of social media and sharing ultimately allowed for the mysterious girl to finally be reunited with the shoe. It was the power of different mediums making this original video’s plot line viral that it got a lot of public attention. Not only that, but as a result of this going viral, there now exists an entire product line for the specific shoe that was shown in the original video. For Cinderella 2.0 goes to show us transmedia storytelling is been used significantly in our society today to gain the liquidity exposure out in lightening speed. With the great reliance on social media specifically, sharing different versions and meanings of original media have allowed people to develop new meanings out of original content. Memes and gifs have taken a strong hit in this market, with people using movie clips and images to develop whole new meaning out of the original content. This does go to raise concern at times, this recreating of meaning can often to lead to misinformation.

Seeing Elon Musk during my car ride to/from school every single day for the past 7 years has truly been of an inspiration to me. It gives me the reaffirmation that ordinary individuals around the world, with a mission and passion towards a vision, can truly make a mark in our society. Elon, from a regular middle class family in South Africa, always had the inclination towards a sustainable future. A future, where we start relying on renewable solutions for sustainability and one where multi-planetary space travel is normally existing. This is a future that Elon imagined through his early days in college, it can be proudly exclaimed his imagination and vision have truly come true today. Today, Elon Musk heads Tesla Motors (as well as Solar City), SpaceX, The Boring Company, and many other small futuristic ventures. For Elon, his vision of sustainable travel comes as result of his automotive company, Tesla, currently the leading manufacturer of electric cars in the world. SpaceX’s mastery has allowed Elon to bring forth the reusable rocket concept to society, greatly working towards making life on Mars a reality. For me, specifically, having grown up in the Bay Area seeing all the traction of startups in the segment of sustainability, the topic is very dear to me. Understanding, from examples like Elon, that sustainable solutions are possible in the world, it just takes the willingness from someone to dive on to a mission in order to make the final result possible. Every industry odd was against Tesla, no one ever believed electric cars at a mass would be societally accepted. In my remix, I demonstrate the shift in societal perceiving that took place around the 2013 mark. It was a time period where people started to actually take global warming and other detrimental concepts with deeper understanding, The remix video is created from the 2013 population standpoint, where people started to notice how the water in the rivers was polluted, pollution was present all across, and the excessive use of automobiles was strictly detrimental to the communities. The video moves on to show how climate change and global warming rallies started to take place around the world, giving people more strength to fit for a green future going forward. The next 2 years after the movements are portrayed by the train, extremely fast traffic, airplane, and the scene heading into the sun. These scenes demonstrate the speed at which all individuals fighting for this cause started at, the rapidly fast train is a metaphor to show the hustle that was engrained in these individuals. The clock scene, along with time lapsed traffic, show the furious speed across a period of time. Then scene of the airline shows the real ‘take off’ that came in the society, entering into a new light of what today (the future) is – this transformation is demonstrated from the scene taking you from a dark screen into the bright sun. The bright, orange sun portrays the bright light and positively influenced future we are heading towards. My original idea was to just show all the sustainable technological applications there are present in the world today, a lot of the problem in our society is that people do not sustainable solutions are present. They are used to knowing about 1-2 solutions only, which are electric cars and solar panels. But, apart from that, no one else is aware of what other possibilities lie out there. I originally created the script to deliver that message, however, to fellow viewers, it turned out to be more of a selling advertisement versus telling a story. I received feedback to deliver potentially the transformation of the sustainable world. That is when I created the entire concept of starting out with the old situation, from the eyes of the citizens. Then, show what all measures were taken to bring forth where the society currently stands. During that process, to show how rapidly all of these efforts came to life, I had to address significantly of the furious emotional effect. For my project, I used Adobe Premier for the editing component, using all audio from Bensound.com and videos from Pexels.com. All of the media pieces used are royalty-free, free content that are published by their creators or publishers for public use. In the class, we talked about how in, “The Difference Between Homage and Plagiarism”, the ideas of homage and plagiarism were demonstrated through real world examples. What we learnt from the article was that “every filmmaker has dabbled in some form of homage during their careers. The borrowing and retooling of ideas is a core part of what makes film tick” (Shields). This idea of borrowing and reinventing it for other purposes seems to be an interesting story throughout. We were also brought upon the article “Fortnite Keeps Stealing Dances – And No One Knows If It’s Illegal”, where see that Epic Games utilized Milly Rock’s and other artist’s dance moves to create their own media pieces. Once again, the idea of using someone else’s work and creating a different delivery from it what the difference between plagiarism and homage I have learnt from this course. In my video, using the Tesla video to deliver how a different storyline as for what the purpose of Tesla in their product trailer was is totally acceptable. This stems well in line with “Star Wars minus Star Wars”, solely because the creator used different clips from various different media pieces to send forth a message that was in-line with the original Star Wars movie. Similarly, Johanna Blakley in “Does Copying In Fashion Keep It Fresh?” conveys how fashion industries really thrive on individuals reigniting old content and twisting it into a new manner. The concepts of plagiarism, copyright, and homage are ones that are very subjective and often misunderstood by individuals. Its the nature of these platforms and their understanding that ultimately leads to such debates in our society.

Source Key for this prompt, in order: I drew from Pexel.com videos: 1987421, 2047892, 1654215, 2881, 1851990, 2557, 1457810, 2029912. Additionally, I used Tesla Motor’s Model 3 trailer video present on their ‘Tesla’ Youtube Channel. For the audio, I used Bensound.com in the following order names: slow motion, perception, once again, and evolution.

Throughout the INFO 303 course, I have understood the clear understanding of what copyright and plagiarism really mean in retrospect. All throughout the educational career of ours, we are always told about how plagiarism is bad and to the students, it essentially is trouble if they are copying someone else’s work and claiming it to be their own. While that definition is very true, if you look at how the world operates today – there is a lot of knowledge sharing and remix concepts used to create new pieces/products. Whether it be a new creation in the technology sector or be a new piece of media or garment, there are traceable signs of where and how these new pieces/products come to life. That is truly what this class has allowed me to understand, how do you leverage different ideas from other people/media pieces, and ultimately create something new with your own twist to it. Whether it be Johanna Blakley’s TED talk referring to how fashion industry is solely based on recycling old designs into newer trends, to us reviewing the plagiarism policy for the university, I have now understood the fine line between copyrighting and plagiarism a lot better as compared to before. That being said, however, this line and distinction is still very ambiguous in our society. What one person may perceive as copyright is truly different that what someone else may. The idea of getting multiple feedbacks from other people in a scenario like this is definitely a practice I want to establish going forward for myself. The ‘Star Wars minus Star Wars’ is a great example of how plagiarism for the content solely is so distinctive based on the person you talk to. For me, it did not account as plagiarism, solely because the creator used different clips from various different media pieces to send forth a message that was in-line with the original Star Wars movie. While the intent to convey the plot was fairly similar, the delivery was very much different in the 2 pieces. And this is what to me differentiates the plagiarism vs. copyright vs. remix – these terms are often misused in different contexts.

I consider Kyle Kallgren’s “Star Wars Minus Star Wars” very much an ethical remix because of the way it is put together. Rather than having long clips that are connected together, almost every scene of in Kallgren’s video is from a different source. This puts together a whole new meaning to the delivery, something that is truly creative just the way it is put together. Star Wars to me is not a remix at all, it a fictional creation created to deliver a storyline and something that is not a “put-together” from other sources. The remixer very well acknowledges his sources, giving a credit to every film and video that he used the clips from. He properly credits all the sources, with mentioning their title name as well as the year they were published in. This way any individual interested in exploring more about those sources can easily find the appropriate media. The remixer definitely transforms the existing materials by bringing a different vibe to the plot, for now it takes clips from other sources that demonstrate a different tone. However, the remix depends on the original content in the terms of delivering the message of the movie – a viewer is still able to understand what Star Wars as a movie is about. The delivery, however, is much different along with the tone of the entire piece – this is something that is expected as result of differentiating clips. I personally really like the usage of relevant clips across different movies, for the remixer took the time to go inspect all those pieces and extract the relevant appropriated segments to put together. In order for that to happen, the remixer has to have understood Star Wars at a very detailed level, understanding not just the plot but the delivery and message component as well. This in itself is an art, and then putting together something that is not a replica of the original content makes this production a complete ethical remix.

In the TED Radio Hour’s, “What is Original?”, the host explicitly covers how Slick Rick’s “Li Di Da Di” rap song has been used across many modern songs and pieces due to the feeling that the certain beats of the song put upon the listener. The host, Guy Raz, goes on to explain how the power of music as a whole on people is one of the strongest connection benefits humans can have to words and rhythms. In our current day society, Slick Rick’s most used beat system is seen through The Notorious B.I.G’s “Hypnotize” song and Miley Cyrus’s “We Can’t Stop” song. To defend and express the interest of these known artists using Slick’s song, Raz explains, “They hard something in the music that spoke to them, that they instantly wanted to ingest themselves into the narrative of that music” (Raz 5:23). This is very true in life as well, if we find someone’s work to be impressive or touching to us in some manner, humans are very likely to try to replicate the same. However, there exists a perfect balance between plagiarism and free-use, such that the second creator has the freedom to use the original creator’s works to an extent (not plagiarizing) and then adding their own flavor or twist to it. The podcast mentions, “In music we take something we love and we build upon it” (Raz 5:44). The TED Radio Hour’s “What is Original?” and Johanna Blakley’s “Does Copying In Fashion Keep It Fresh?” both seem to convey the message – a message of how music and fashion industries really thrive on individuals reigniting old content and twisting it into a new manner. For Johanna, she expresses how the fashion industry is ruled as a 3 dimensional design segment, one that is utilitarian and used to cover human bodies. She expresses, “One of the magical side effects of having a culture of copying is the establishment of trends” (Blakley 2:50). And this is very much true throughout the music, fashion, and all other consumer involved industries – the art of competition exists and contains as a result of new players in the market(s) using previous-day platforms and pursuing them in the today world with a shifted twist. In the academic world, plagiarism is taken in my opinion one level stricter than what I have understood from the podcasts regarding the music and fashion industries. The university claims “Borrowed Facts or Information: Information obtained in one’s reading or research that is not common knowledge must be acknowledged” (Student Code, § 1‑402.b.4). Listening to Johanna and Guy Raz, it was understood that using someone else’s works do not need to be “acknowledged” as they have to in the academic industry. Johanna expresses how any garment can be replicated by any other manufacturer, till the time that same logo fo the original manufacturer is not being used. Similarly, Miley and Notorious B.I.G’s do not give credit to Slick Rick specifically in the media piece at all. In the music and fashion world, it seems like intellectual property is almost perceived as open-source, people can use each other’s works to twist about and present the idea(s) in a newer fashion – something as Johanna mentions is the sole reason the fashion industry’s new trends continue to pursue. As for the university, reinventing the definition of plagiarism to strictly be a direct copy or replication of a person’s works (potentially adding a word count restriction) is really the direction to go in my opinion. There are so many great ideas and industry leading pursuivants that exist out there, I think the university student code is a hinderance to students, for it does not allow them to go out and look at these existing solutions as means of learning, educating others, and augmenting towards the future.