The readings/viewings this week focused mainly on the concept of plagiarism and how current copyright laws are a detriment on furthering future artistic endeavors.
In both critiques, large corporations (Disney and Apple) are shown as hypocrites. In The Ecstasy of Influence, Jonathan Lethen combines Disney and denial, penning the term “disnial”. In Embrace the Remix, Kirby Ferguson criticizes Steve Jobs' drastic change in his stance on the open-sourceness of certain patents. Disney and Apple are two of the most successful companies in the world at the moment, which makes them an easy target for these types of criticism. Although they may be taking away the quantity of potential art in the world, I’m not sure if their business practices are taking away the quality of said art. They have constantly been able to manufacture high quality products. So even though I may or may not agree with their practices, I do not think that they should be taken full blame of limiting creative output in the world.
I think plagiarism is accepted when something's considered "good" and severely frowned upon when something's ehh. In both the reading and the video, Bob Dylan is mentioned because he's known to sample previous works of music. Nobody cares because Bob Dylan is "good." But when Vanilla Ice samples Queen, everybody bashes on the poor guy. Everybody's a hypocrite in some way, and the inclusions of money and greed only escalate these kinds of reactions further.