Interview: Nina Paley (author of “Sita Sings the Blues” and the two “Minute Meme” animations)

“In lieu of today’s regular column, I’ve decided to
present an edited transcript of a very informative interview of
Nina Paley by Thomas Gideon of “The Commandline
Podcast.” Paley has been doing a lot of interviews since her
free-licensed release of “Sita Sings the Blues” and her
subsequent work with QuestionCopyright.org (specifically her two
“Minute Meme” animations: “Copying Is Not
Theft” and “All Creative Work is Derivative”)
— reading them all would be quite a bit of work. But this
interview is possibly the best — covering all of the major
issues she’s been talking about in what I thought was a very
insightful way. So: kudos to Nina Paley and to her interviewer,
Thomas Gideon, and I hope you find this text version
interesting.

“The original podcast, posted on February 24, 2010, can be found
at The Command Line. Unfortunately, as Gideon notes in his
introduction, the audio quality on Nina Paley’s voice was
very poor due to an analog phone line (which is one of the reasons
why I wanted to transcribe the interview). Here I have also edited
the interview down just a bit for clarity. I believe it is an
accurate representation of “what they wanted to say.”
I’ve also, of course, added links and illustrations for the
topics mentioned in the interview. Be aware, this column is
considerably longer than usual, but I wanted to include the entire
interview, because I think anyone interested in the future of free
culture (including free software) would benefit from reading
it.”

Complete Story