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We're going to begin in 1964.

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Bob Dylan is 23 years old, and his career

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is just reaching its pinnacle.

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He's been christened the voice of a generation,

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and he's churning out classic songs

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at a seemingly impossible rate,

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but there's a small minority of dissenters, and they claim

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that Bob Dylan is stealing other people's songs.

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2004. Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse,

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takes the Beatles' "White Album,"

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combines it with Jay-Z's "The Black Album"

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to create "The Grey Album."

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"The Grey Album" becomes an immediate sensation online,

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and the Beatles' record company sends out countless

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cease-and-desist letters for "unfair competition

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and dilution of our valuable property."

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Now, "The Grey Album" is a remix.

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It is new media created from old media.

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It was made using these three techniques:

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copy, transform and combine.

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It's how you remix. You take existing songs,

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you chop them up, you transform the pieces,

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you combine them back together again,

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and you've got a new song, but that new song

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is clearly comprised of old songs.

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But I think these aren't just the components of remixing.

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I think these are the basic elements of all creativity.

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I think everything is a remix,

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and I think this is a better way to conceive of creativity.

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All right, let's head back to 1964, and let's hear

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where some of Dylan's early songs came from.

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We'll do some side-by-side comparisons here.

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All right, this first song you're going to hear

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is "Nottamun Town." It's a traditional folk tune.

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After that, you'll hear Dylan's "Masters of War."

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Jean Ritchie: ♫ In Nottamun Town, not a soul would look out, ♫[br]

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♫ not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down. ♫

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Bob Dylan: ♫ Come you masters of war, ♫

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♫ you that build the big guns, you that build the death planes, ♫

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♫ You that build all the bombs. ♫

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Kirby Ferguson: Okay, so that's the same basic melody

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and overall structure. This next one is "The Patriot Game,"

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by Dominic Behan. Alongside that,

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you're going to hear "With God on Our Side," by Dylan.

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Dominic Behan: ♫ Come all ye young rebels, ♫

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♫ and list while I sing, ♫

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♫ for the love of one's land is a terrible thing. ♫

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BD: ♫ Oh my name it is nothin', ♫

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♫ my age it means less, ♫

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♫ the country I come from is called the Midwest. ♫

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KF: Okay, so in this case, Dylan admits

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he must have heard "The Patriot Game," he forgot about it,

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then when the song kind of bubbled back up

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in his brain, he just thought it was his song.

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Last one, this is "Who's Going To Buy You Ribbons,"

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another traditional folk tune.

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Alongside that is "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right."

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This one's more about the lyric.

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Paul Clayton: ♫ It ain't no use to sit and sigh now, ♫

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♫ darlin', and it ain't no use to sit and cry now. ♫

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BD: ♫ It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe, ♫

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♫ if you don't know by now, ♫

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♫ and it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe, ♫[br]

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♫ it'll never do somehow. ♫

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KF: Okay, now, there's a lot of these.

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It's been estimated that two thirds of the melodies

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Dylan used in his early songs were borrowed.

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This is pretty typical among folk singers.

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Here's the advice of Dylan's idol, Woody Guthrie.

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"The worlds are the important thing.

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Don't worry about tunes. Take a tune,

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sing high when they sing low,

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sing fast when they sing slow, and you've got a new tune."

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(Laughter) (Applause)

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And that's, that's what Guthrie did right here,

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and I'm sure you all recognize the results.

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(Music)

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We know this tune, right? We know it?

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Actually you don't.

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That is "When the World's on Fire," a very old melody,

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in this case performed by the Carter Family.

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Guthrie adapted it into "This Land Is Your Land."

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So, Bob Dylan, like all folk singers, he copied melodies,

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he transformed them, he combined them with new lyrics

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which were frequently their own concoction

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of previous stuff.

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Now, American copyright and patent laws run counter

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to this notion that we build on the work of others.

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Instead, these laws and laws around the world

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use the rather awkward analogy of property.

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Now, creative works may indeed be kind of like property,

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but it's property that we're all building on,

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and creations can only take root and grow

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once that ground has been prepared.

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Henry Ford once said, "I invented nothing new.

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I simply assembled the discoveries of other men

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behind whom were centuries of work.

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Progress happens when all the factors that make for it

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are ready and then it is inevitable."

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2007. The iPhone makes it debut.

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Apple undoubtedly brings this innovation to us early,

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but its time was approaching because its core technology

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had been evolving for decades.

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That's multi-touch, controlling a device

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by touching its display.

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Here is Steve Jobs introducing multi-touch

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and making a rather foreboding joke.

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Steve Jobs: And we have invented a new technology

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called multi-touch.

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You can do multi-fingered gestures on it,

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and boy have we patented it. (Laughter)

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KF: Yes. And yet, here is multi-touch in action.

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This is at TED, actually, about a year earlier.

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This is Jeff Han, and, I mean, that's multi-touch.

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It's the same animal, at least.

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Let's hear what Jeff Han has to say about this

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newfangled technology.

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Jeff Han: Multi-touch sensing isn't anything --

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isn't completely new. I mean, people like Bill Buxton

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have been playing around with it in the '80s.

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The technology, you know, isn't the most exciting thing here

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right now other than probably its newfound accessibility.

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KF: So he's pretty frank about it not being new.

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So it's not multi-touch as a whole that's patented.

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It's the small parts of it that are,

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and it's in these small details where

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we can clearly see patent law contradicting its intent:

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to promote the progress of useful arts.

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Here is the first ever slide-to-unlock.

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That is all there is to it. Apple has patented this.

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It's a 28-page software patent, but I will summarize

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what it covers. Spoiler alert: Unlocking your phone

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by sliding an icon with your finger. (Laughter)

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I'm only exaggerating a little bit. It's a broad patent.

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Now, can someone own this idea?

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Now, back in the '80s, there were no software patents,

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and it was Xerox that pioneered the graphical user interface.

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What if they had patented pop-up menus,

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scrollbars, the desktop with icons that look like folders

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and sheets of paper?

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Would a young and inexperienced Apple

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have survived the legal assault from a much larger

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and more mature company like Xerox?

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Now, this idea that everything is a remix might sound

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like common sense until you're the one getting remixed.

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For example ...

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SJ: I mean, Picasso had a saying.

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He said, "Good artists copy. Great artists steal."

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And we have, you know,

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always been shameless about stealing great ideas.

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KF: Okay, so that's in '96. Here's in 2010.

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"I'm going to destroy Android because it's a stolen product."

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(Laughter)

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"I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this." (Laughter)

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Okay, so in other words, great artists steal, but not from me.

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(Laughter)

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Now, behavioral economists might refer to this sort of thing as loss aversion

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We have a strong predisposition towards protecting

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what we feel is ours.

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We have no such aversion towards copying

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what other people have, because we do that nonstop.

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So here's the sort of equation we're looking at.

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We've got laws that fundamentally treat creative works as property,

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plus massive rewards or settlements

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in infringement cases, plus huge legal fees

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to protect yourself in court,

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plus cognitive biases against perceived loss.

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And the sum looks like this.

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That is the last four years of lawsuits

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in the realm of smartphones.

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Is this promoting the progress of useful arts?

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1983. Bob Dylan is 42 years old, and his time

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in the cultural spotlight is long since past.

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He records a song called "Blind Willie McTell,"

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named after the blues singer, and the song

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is a voyage through the past, through a much darker time,

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but a simpler one, a time when musicians like Willie McTell

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had few illusions about what they did.

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"I jump 'em from other writers

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but I arrange 'em my own way."

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I think this is mostly what we do.

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Our creativity comes from without, not from within.

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We are not self-made. We are dependent on one another,

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and admitting this to ourselves isn't an embrace

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of mediocrity and derivativeness.

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It's a liberation from our misconceptions,

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and it's an incentive to not expect so much from ourselves

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and to simply begin.

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Thank you so much. It was an honor to be here.

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Thank you. (Applause)

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Thank you. Thank you. (Applause)

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Thank you. (Applause)