Copyright gone (further) awry?
So WIRED News leads with a few different stories on copyright and remixes today. The one that really caught my attention was the one on the Sixth Circuit ruling that "requires all musicians to get permission before sampling any music -- even if it would be unrecognizable in the new work."
Does this make any sense? I mean, how would the creators of the sampled source even know? From my point-of-view, it seems that we are in a legal trend of letting copyright spin out of control as every creator (or company that sells a lot of music, films, books, etc.) fears loss of income and cries foul. I'm all for protecting the ability of a creative artist to make a paycheck (moreso than some on this blog, I am pretty sure), but it seems we are radically expanding the protection afforded to copyright holders, without any clear guiding purpose or logic.
Verba Artis, Hawthorne, and Mokie Jovis--I suspect all three of you have fairly insightful opinions on this.
Does this make any sense? I mean, how would the creators of the sampled source even know? From my point-of-view, it seems that we are in a legal trend of letting copyright spin out of control as every creator (or company that sells a lot of music, films, books, etc.) fears loss of income and cries foul. I'm all for protecting the ability of a creative artist to make a paycheck (moreso than some on this blog, I am pretty sure), but it seems we are radically expanding the protection afforded to copyright holders, without any clear guiding purpose or logic.
Verba Artis, Hawthorne, and Mokie Jovis--I suspect all three of you have fairly insightful opinions on this.
5 Comments:
Would it be a false analogy for me to suggest that this would be similar to a poet not being allowed to use the same combination of words in a previous poem by another poet, even if the combination amounted to nothing more than a frequent subject/verb pairing like, "smoke billowed?" Or does the fact that music has more nuance (lyrics as well as sounds; read versus heard) discount this comparison?
ACW, I think not false. There is, as you note, some differences, but how far will it go. That's really the question.
Sampling isn't like writing two or three words in succession. You take a piece of recorded music that you know is someone else's intellectual property, and then you record it with you doing something else. YOU KNOW YOU'RE USING SOMEONE ELSE'S WORK. Why shouldn't you have to seek their permission? Say the Dixie Chicks, who dislike Bush's war policy, were to have their songs sampled by a Bush ad without their permission. Do you see the problem if we take out money and put in politics?
Galactichero,
I see the problem, it's the boundaries that I am concerned about. I don't think anyone is arguing with artists making a living, having some control over what happens to their work (having it co-opted), etc.
In your hypothetical, what if the Bush campaign took a sample and altered it beyond all recognition (such that the Dixie Chicks nor anyone else would be able to identify it as such)? Would they have to pay then?
What if they cut the sample into individual notes, then reassembled them into an entirely new composition, using the notes as they would any other synthesized tones? Pay then?
Is it only about the source material? If I sample a song that is recorded and played solely on a casio synthesizer, cut it to constituent notes, and reassemble them, do I have to pay then? (Essentially the same example as above, but it takes out the argument that the sampled performance created unique tones, expressive playing of the instrument, etc.)
How about I sample the song, rearrange it until it is unrecognizable, resulting in a new song, which I then hire a band to play this new composition based on my sample (as I have re-arranged it)?
These are not super-outrageous examples (though extreme in a sense, yes.). My point is, where is this legal trend heading? Can't have DVD-backup software, because you might make copies (so what if it erodes the base of Sony v. Universal). Sever the concept of copyright from natural life-span of creators, because that works better for the artificial person of corporations.
I just worry the pendulum is swinging too far.
I think the constituent notes concept is a straw man. If you take it apart and make it unrecognizable, then you will never get caught for a copyright violation unless it was your intent to have sampled the song. Why not just write the song? You're doing the same thing. You can copy the tone, tambre, instrument etc. and then write your own music--that's not sampling. If you intended to take parts of the song and reuse them then why not hold you responsible to the author? If you actually make it unrecognizable and it still becomes an issue that you were using the copyrighted work, then it's your intent, and use, not mere use, that is getting you in trouble. Similar sounds on a synthesizer in a completely new tune just aren't sampling.
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