The ideas of Net Neutrality or Utopian Plagiarism are just that, Utopian. Like Marxism, it counts on artists all contributing their abilities and using what others give in a respectful way. However, as history has proven, not everyone can be trusted to contribute or use property fairly. Our Internet space, like our physical one, needs some structure that allows for a meeting of a wide array of people. In such a structure, like government or Internet protocol, the needs of some people's interest are left out in order to include others since in any majority or democratic form, the extremes are left out of decision making process by design and necessity. Although there may be some way to truly factor in the needs of all participants in a large society, it has not yet been discovered by humans.
Remix culture also runs into a Utopian conundrum. Although artistic process and sharing are great goals, greed and ego are considerable variables when you take on the risk of open collaboration. As an artists trying to make a living doing art, I feel that we have to think of a way to make sure artists are credited and somehow paid for their work. Although there are immense problems and exclusion in the traditional gallery/studio/record label model, the new model of remix and open source have their own drawbacks. The new generation of musicians and artists have almost come to accept the fact that they will always have a day job, there is no way to live sufficiently on the income generated by their works alone. While being locked into exploitative contracts is not ideal, at least those musicians, filmmakers, and writers could focus their time on their chosen craft. While we may have traded some of the systemic constraint in the name of artistic freedom, we also sacrificed our livelihoods. Neither system truly serves and appreciated the value of the artists and creators, I believe a model that provides for the greatest possibility for an artist to profit from their own work is vital. If there are no artists that can truly devote their time to creating without having to have another job, it says that our society finds art, music and movies are worthless. If that isn't true, it means that someone is profiting on the works that other people created, and that doesn't bode well for the artist. Instead of encouraging more artists to work and make things we love, we've built up powerful salesmen.
