Response to "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" by Walter Benjamin

Benjamin raises a good point in his essay: the concept of aura. He explains aura as the power of an artwork as it is tied to tradition and historical context. Aura is minimized by reproduction because it takes away the uniqueness of an object. The fact that we can now reproduce almost anything takes away the "specialness" of an object.
Building on his argument, there is the constant concern of ownership. Is something worth owning if anyone can own an exact copy? Artists borrow (or steal) and remix each others' ideas and works. While mechanical reproduction can bring the work to anyone, it seems to have taken away some of the security that came with craftsmanship. The human errors and endurance of time used to make an original stand out from fakes, but now copies can be made, effectively doing away with originality of a work.
It was also interesting how he brought politics into the essay. Now that we can manipulate and redistribute images, people are able to use media to manipulate and misinform the public. Today, no image can be taken at face value whereas it was easier to discern any tampering on an image. And with current and future CGI technology, even film is no exception.