Spinning, speeding up, warping, transforming, re-manipulating: These are all concepts of the 1970s hip-hop revolution that brought a new breed of music-making called sampling. Paying tribute to their biggest inspirations, DJs would take elements of their favorite songs and create something entirely new.
At first, no one seemed to pay much attention to the out-of-sight hip-hop culture that was quickly brewing in underground clubs. But then something happened – they started making money.
“I first got interested because some of my favorite sampling and collage artists started getting sued. That was the first time I thought of it as a legal issue,” said filmmaker Kembrew McLeod, an associate professor of communication studies at the University of Iowa who has studied copyright law and its impact on creative culture since the massive early ’90s lawsuit campaign.
His new documentary film, “Copyright Criminals: This is a Sampling Sport,” co-produced with Benjamin Franzen, will screen here on campus this week. McLeod has also written several books on the issue, including “Owning Culture” and “Freedom of Expression.”
See the movie
What: | Copyright Criminals |
Where: | 221 Allen Hall |
When: | Tuesday, 7 to 8:30 p.m. |
Cost: | Free |
In his film, McLeod argues that the music industry has halted sampling from being what it once was. Nowadays, people think of sampling as boring and generic loops, he explained, because it has been robbed of creative freedom.
“It is real sad that this creative new form of making music stopped in its tracks before it really evolved, at least in the mainstream. Hip-hop really had a chance to get really interesting sonically, but the law forced hip-hop artists to think of music economically,” McLeod said.
The film includes interviews with hip-hop founders like Public Enemy, De La Soul and Digital Underground, with questions such as, “Can sound be owned, and can art be stopped?” McLeod admits that the ambiguous questions produced answers mostly in the gray area.
Established opponents like Paul McCartney and Prince, who turned down interview requests, see sampling as simple piracy. However, other musicians like Clyde Stubblefield, the most sampled musician, was happy when hip-hop revived his own forgotten music.
“That’s how music has always been made since the beginning of time,” McLeod said. “No one comes up with something from the blue. They have to borrow from the past.”
What really changed since the early days of hip-hop is technology. Anyone with a basic sense of rhythm can download free versions of software on a cheap laptop. This has produced a growing challenge for balancing the constitutional rights of copyright with evolving new technology.
“It is a daunting task sometimes. It is very difficult because technology is moving so fast,” said professor Kyuho Youm, who teaches communication law at the University.
This has posed a real threat in the eyes of the music industry, which McLeod called a “horribly corrupt place.” “I’ve sued and I’ve been sued. That’s the nature of the business,” Public Enemy’s Chuck D said in the film.
“They’ve been extremely reluctant in figuring out a model for how to make sampling work,” McLeod said. The laws have only gotten worse, he said. The 2005 court case, Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films, settled the ambiguity of previous laws, and samplers now need a license to reproduce even a few seconds of another artist’s composition.
However, there are lines to be drawn. Musicians seem to agree that there is a wide spectrum between the uncreative reproduction of an entire chorus and a transformative work that is so different from the original composition that it can hardly be noticed.
“Congress has not yet done enough in favor for those who need some kind of creative freedom; not wholly, but to a limited extent,” Youm said.
He said everything has to do with the interpretation of “fair use,” a guideline for courts that gives legal grounds for programs like the Daily Show with Jon Stewart to use private footage.
“Unfortunately, fair use hasn’t been applied to sampling. That may change in the future,” McLeod said.
Youm agreed. “Fair use is not as adaptable as it should be … creative people should be given leeway.”
But because of hip-hop’s underground nature, much of copy infringement “flies under the radar,” as McLeod put it.
“I think that we’re already building on each other in our creations; essentially with hip-hop and sampling, they’re taking it to the next level,” said vocalist Scott Gilmore from Eugene’s Just People.
Anything and everything can be owned in our capitalist society, Gilmore explained, but for him, borrowing music is the highest form of flattery. “Music has such potential to make people happy that it should be free,” Gilmore said.
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