I have been thinking about the central theme of my project, the protection of an artists original work, and considering the broader implications of this. The music industry is one where this is most problematic for artists, and on re-watching a film I have seen once before called ‘Yesterday’, I felt an overwhelming sense of relevance to my project, and to the wider world of creatives and originality of ideas.
For those unfamiliar, the film is about an unsuccessful singer songwriter called Jack Malik who is struck by a bus during a worldwide blackout. After recovery in hospital, and while drinking in the the pub, his lifelong friend and manager gave him a guitar to replace the one broken in the accident. Malik chose to play the Beatles ‘Yesterday’, and was greeted by shock and awe from his friends who had never heard it before. After some filler scenes, Malik realises that through some unknown force he has entered an alternate dimension where the Beatles never existed, and therefore none of the songs they ever wrote existed.
This leads Malik to recall all the great songs the Beatles wrote, and claim them as his own, leading him to be regarded as the greatest singer-songwriter ever known. In one scene, Ed Sheeran who guest stars (and puts in by the way and excellent performance) challenges the upcoming star to a songwriting competition, and after Malik presents “The Long and Winding Road’, Sheeran dejectedly proclaims Malik is “Mozart and I am Salieri”.
The film ends with Malik, after having achieved super-stardom being the acclaimed the single greatest artist of their generation, or of several, predictably admitting he stole all the songs, and going back to live the quiet life in quiet Suffolk with the films love interest, ignoring the doubtless criminal charges of fraud, intellectual property theft, breach of contract, and numerous other problems would ensue. Doubtless this was a Hollywood schmaltz ending designed to appease the movie going masses.
However, ludicrous ending aside, the film on second viewing made me think about a subtext of it, which has wider implications. How can creatives, in a world of so much noise, when everything great has already been created before, find their voice, and make something that matter, be heard?
This is hardly a new question or idea, indeed, typing into google “creatives everything has been done” comes up with 17,700,000 results, the first 20 of which are listicles on how to move past the “Everything’s Been Done Trap as a Creative”. Yet this contradiction illustrates the central problem, even my thought itself, and the films underlying premise are unoriginal, indeed, increasingly, everything is unoriginal.
Turning now to my project, in a world where everything has been done, it begins to become increasingly clear that copying will become the standard. This thought needs further exploration, as it has the potential to have profound effects on my project which is focused on the protection of original work, and preservation of copyright.