What is a Remix?

last updated: 06.10.09

A remix is a new thing made from existing things.

The word remix has its roots in the disco/hip-hop scene, but it's a long standing practice that can be found in all areas of culture and society; new ideas are built on the foundations of previous knowledge.
Read more here. Watch a Pool video about remixing here Better still check out a remix of it here

Remixing is a central part of the Pool project. We're enabling it in three ways.

Ease of attribution
Creative Commons licensing
Allowing downloads

Attribution

All Pool contributions can be linked to other items by using the 'this is related to' field in the upload or edit process. You can also make references to works outside the Pool as well. By attributing a new work to an existing one, cultural connections can be made explicit and knowledge extended. Under restrictive rights frameworks, remixing as a cultural practice has been carried out largely 'under the radar'. This gives it an edge, perhaps, but also limits its impact.

Creative Commons licensing

Pool is using CC as a way for contributors to flexibly manage the rights of their works. This includes a clear permissions path for remixing (or not), set by the contributor and immediately visible to remixers. Works that can be remixed are the ones that are licensed under a Creative Commons BY, BY-NC, BY-SA, BY-NC-SA, or a public domain licence. If one of those licences are not used then you can download the work and share it but you can't alter it.

When you upload your contribution, you'll be asked to choose how you want to manage its rights and if you'll allow other people to remix it. We hope that you do allow re-use by attribution, because this kind of collaborative creation can generate compelling, multi-voiced media. Easy accrediting of authorship is one of the reasons that CC is favoured by many in the creative community.

Read more about Creative Commons in our help section here.

Allowing downloads

Unlike many commercial social media sites, Pool aims to facilitate the exchange of ideas and media peer to peer, so we are allowing downloads.

When you look at a video in the Pool, you're seeing a smaller version of the original. This is a compressed, lower quality 'flash' preview file that can be streamed to your computer in real time (depending on your connection).
But if you want to work with this video to make something new you will want the full quality version. You can download this as explained in our help section here.

All audio on Pool is pretty much full quality already, as mp3 files.

Still images, like video, are displayed as smaller previews. They are not so downgraded as the videos, but you should consider downloading the better quality version.

Don't forget that you can also remix text. A good example on Pool is an absurdist poem generated from a film essay.

If you're really getting into reworking some Pool contributions we encourage you to contact the contributor – they'll probably be excited to hear from you. They'll be able to provide you with the best quality uncompressed original file and, who knows, this could be the start of a great collaboration!

You can watch a short video of John from Pool talking about his example remix here.

Better still check out a remix of it here!

What is a Remix?

A remix is a new thing made from existing things.

Further reading