Remix in Cybespace:

from loss of aura to dilution of authorship

Abstract

One of the emerging characteristics of cyberspace has been the practice of the remix, breeding technique that reconfigures parts from existing works. Benjamin had announced the loss of the aura of the artwork, caused by the possibility of reproducing in series, in the case of the remix, now found a new stage: the dilution of authorship, process in which the modification and recombination of fragments to create a new content removes the product from their original context, giving it another direction and thus a new author. This phenomenon causes a tension between the cultural industry and remixers, since they use the cultural products without considering the copyright. We analyze three videos-trailers available on YouTube and produced by the technique of remixing.