As more and more media go digital, they become more malleable in the hands of our computers. Stitching together the fictional trailer for the next Star Wars movie, now circulating on the Net, requires just a VCR, a PC and a good eye for editing. As music migrates to the Internet, and as TVs and PCs converge, we're going to have even more media to play in and reshape. Video is getting the most attention these days, thanks in part to the buzz over Apple Computer's iMac DV, which comes bundled with movie-editing software. But all newer-vintage PCs can be home Hollywoods.
Many digital auteurs consider their work well above home video, of course.
If the technology isn't quite up to Hollywood standards, that's fine for Laitinen's film. Their tunes are just begging to be used as sound tracks or the raw material for a remix. If you don't happen to have professional mixing software lying around, Beatnik will help you do the work through a browser. The remix concept doesn't apply as well to books, unless you count postmodern fiction as one long remix. But the Net is making it much easier for authors, both budding and established, to broadly distribute their work.