Co-creative Culture and Labor

The key-expressions this week are "immaterial labor" and "co-creative culture". 

The video "Counter-Strike for Kids" is a double example. In one hand, it shows how user-created mods can be acquired by game companies, either to be purchased with the game they mod or as a new game - in this case, as a new game. When it became the most played mod of Half-Life, Valve developed it further in order to make it a new title. As seems to be a recurrent Valve practice, the company hired the modders for in-house development. Valve made its editor available with Half-Life, so that fans/players could make their own levels. This kind of practice fosters a "co-creative culture", a culture in which players are allowed to create on top of what companies developed in the first place. This originates either better versions of the original work/game or brand new works/games. Counter-Strike is an example of the latter.

The co-creative process doesn't end there, as this video-example shows. Deriving from the mod that became a whole new game, these people created a whole new piece, in this case, a parody video.

When I'm faced with this kind of derived-pieces-of-work, I can't help thinking about my father. He was an art teacher. He's students were usually under 14. When they had drawing exercises in which they could do anything, if they did something that resonated obvious products of pop-culture, like cartoon characters or famous people, he would reject their work and tell them to start all over again. His argument was "you are just deriving others’ work, that's not original or creative!". My father's view questions this notion of "co-creation". I don't share my father's view but I like this challenge. To what extent is derived work co-creative? Where is the border between copy and original work, if the subject is shared by two 'authors'? The answers to these questions are not always obvious. Is this “co-creative culture” a “non-creative culture”, instead?