"Alice" Continued: Disney and Pogo

When Maddalen wrote a blog entry a few weeks ago about how remix should be considered its own cultural entity and used the example of a remix of Alice in Wonderland called "Alice" to illustrate her point, I knew it was important that I follow up with a discussion about the struggles with copyright and Disney that the DJ who created the remix had encountered. Pogo, the VJ and producer who created the Alice remix, only recently re-emerged back on the remix scene, after being slapped with a gag order by Disney when he first released "Alice" in 2007. Disney put a gag order on all of his mixes and forced him to take them down, including his remix of Alice, which had gained over five million views on YouTube. At the same time, they also offered him a one year contract to produce music for Walt Disney Motion Picture Studios. His contract and the gag order were only just released this past November, which meant that Pogo was free to again upload his remixes, although he still faces the possibility of being sued for infringement by Disney. After the gag order was released, Pogo had the following to say about his experience with Disney and copyright:

"After a year producing professionally for Walt Disney Motion Picture Studios, my contract has finally come to an end. The gag order is released, and my classic Disney mixes are allowed back online.

I’d like to apologize to everyone for the secrecy that has so far been surrounding this issue. When one of the biggest, most powerful corporations in the world zipped my mouth shut with the hand of the law, there’s little I could do to communicate without deliberately breaching my contract. Alice, Expialidocious and White Magic had to be hidden because Disney considered them illegal. They otherwise would have engaged me as an ongoing infringer, an act that would understandably exceed the legal boundaries of any corporation. Folks, I long to release my Pirates Of The Caribbean mix on YouTube. I think it’s one of my best mixes yet, and it’s agonizing to imagine it rotting away in some filing cabinet instead of taking its rightful place in my body of work. All I’ve been told is that the producers at Jerry Bruckheimer Films want nothing to do with it. Whether that means they’re displeased or they’re just waiting for the right time is impossible for me to say. The sad reality is, Swashbuckle was contracted work. I’d literally have to start saving the money that Disney would sue me before making the decision to upload it. But who knows? It might just come to that. My music is my mark in this world."

And as if to prove his point, only four days after the gag order was up, he released "Wishery", which is a remix of the 1937 Disney classic Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. Pogo has also released other remixes like "UPular" and "Expialidocious" since the gag order was released and continues to use Disney films to create new remixes. For a full list of all of his remixes to date, check out his website, where you can also name your price for any of the remixes he's create so far.

Remix as its own artistic entity

After reading a previous blog post by Jorden “A Different Kind of Remix.. or Remake?” I was inspired to continue the discussion on the connotation that remixes hold. Remixes are stereotypically known to be ‘much faster’ or ‘heavier’ then the original song beat. This stereotype is not true, and I want to bring awareness to remix culture, as it’s own entity. A remix of a song should be seen in its own entity. I am not saying it should be completely free of its referent, but it should be judged on its own. The referent is still important to compare the differences and similarities.

Using the ‘Specificity Thesis,” explained by Philosopher and theorist Noel Carroll, can be beneficial to explain that remix is a different art form from the original song because of its formal and physical medium. She explains the thesis is in place to correct the vagueness of tendency to reduce all art forms to their common denominator. The idea that there is something each medium does best, and in this case, remix is the formative building on ideas, beats, pictures, clips and formats that already exist.

Here is a song created (remixed) from all the sounds and voices heard in Alice In Wonderland to form an “original” song. I think it is actually such a pretty, calming song:

Here is the source for Noel Carroll:

Nonfiction Film and Postmodernist Skepticism." Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies. Eds. David Bordwell and Carroll. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996. pp. 283-306.