by Sawyer Vanderwerff
Since the emergence of copyright laws and regulations, artists have found themselves constantly dealing with the implications of regulated ownership of theirs and others creative endeavors. Music is one of the many mediums of expression protected by current copyright policy. The protection these artists are afforded for their original works is necessary for preserving the creative integrity of the original artist. Sampling of music and sound is nothing new to musical creativity though much of the current policy that is meant to protect original works from reckless infringement is also what inspires much of the developing techniques for sampling. The development of music sampling techniques and musical copyright and licensing has been a steady progression of the technology that allows musicians to more effectively sample and the policy that allows for the policing of these activities. All artist are entitled to clear and defined rights concerning their works just as all artists have the right and perhaps even the responsibility to push policy to the brink in the name of artistic progress.
While
much consideration and debate
over copyright law has been sparked over the sampling of music, the
artistic
practice of musical sampling is not necessarily flagrant disregard for
the creative property of someone else. The technique of creating a
“collage” of sound has
been present since the reproduction of sound has been possible. To help
further
explain the reciprocal relationship of current copyright law and
sampling
technology it would be prudent to move towards a definition of the two
as they
stand today. For this, it would be best to observe the origins of terms
and the
exigency of policy.
When the Copyright Act of 1790 came
into effect it gave authors legal ownership of their published works and gave
them and the public certain rights concerning these works. The policies were simple
because the act of using someone’s published works without the right
permissions was simple. This law was a social contract essentially. According
to Charles Bailey, “Copyright was a bargain: society would grant creators a
time-limited ability to control and profit from their works before they fell
into the public domain (where works are unprotected) because doing so resulted
in ‘Progress of Science and useful Arts’ (a social good.)” This policy worked
fine for music in 1790 because flagrant copying of sheet music is an obvious
infringement of the rights of a composer.
Fast forward a few centuries and
definitions of “copying” music have changed dramatically. With the technologies
like this and this, musicians have the ability to not only adapt other’s music
and sound for their own needs but to entirely transform the work by converting
sound into readable computer files known as MIDI. Eliot Van Buskirk from Wire describes
one such sampling tool by saying, “In
layman’s terms, this has the potential to let people rewrite music
that’s already been written, fix wrong notes, pickapart samples and
basically get their hands on the DNA of a song or sample…” Digital
technologies have made sharing and editing music entirely practical for just
about anyone. With greater access came the need for more precise regulation. “Once
the copyright implications of digital media and the Internet sunk in,
entertainment and information companies were deeply concerned: digital
technologies made creating perfect copies effortless, and the Internet provided
a free (or low-cost) way to distribute content globally,” Bailey states in his
article.
Copyright policy helps to find the
balance between compensation and access. With this in mind we move towards a
greater understanding of what sampling means to copyright by placing digital
sampling within the context of the sound collage. The fine arts practice of
collage has contributors in not just music but also in the fields of visual
arts or writing. The advent of the phonograph allowed for music to be presented
in a reproducible, tangible format that musicians could work with as a sculptor
molds clay. Stefan Wolpe is the first composer documented to have used the
phonograph for anything other than straightforward playback. Essentially, he
played eight different recordings at various speeds in the same room. It wasn’t
until 1956 that Bill Buchanan and Dickie Goodman tested the limits of copyright
law with their “skit” entitled “The Flying Saucer.” The piece relied on
magnetic-tape editing techniques to create a rendition of the radio broadcast, War of the Worlds, wherein certain parts
were replaced with lines from pop songs. The roots of sampling are highly
embedded in this practice of literally cutting and pasting pieces of tape to
achieve new sound. When a slew of record labels and artist inevitably filed for
an injunction, Judge Henry Clay Greenberg decided that the work was clearly a
parody and that Buchanan and Goodman had not violated anyone’s copyright
(Kembrew and Dicola)
When does a sound cease to belong to
a musician? Is the sound that the particular piece of percussion produces owned
by the musician or is just the specific recording? Who draws the line between infringement,
parody, transformation, remix, etc? Take mash-ups seen in the Grey Album by Dangermouse as an example.
This work was simply a capella from
Jay-Z’s Black Album played over
spliced loops of songs from the Beatle’s White
Album (Demers). A mash-up relies on people’s familiarity with the music at
hand and never tries to appropriate the works as an original piece for the new
artist. Dangermouse relied on his audience recognizing exactly what his music
was. The piece was only successful because it was stolen however the impact of
this arrangement wouldn’t have been quite as effective if the audience couldn’t
recognize the music that was being appropriated.
As the technology that allows artists to
manipulate theirs and others sounds advances so too must notions of ownership
and copyright. While regulation does need to exist on the ownership of creative
endeavors it is obvious that the course of music has favored digital sampling
as a viable technique for creative output. Despite its definition as parody,
transformation, collage, or remix, digital sampling remains relevant in music
and in the ever-changing policy of copyright.
Works
Cited
Demers, Joanna Teresa. "The
Shadow of the Law." Steal This Music: How Intellectual Property
Law Affects Musical Creativity. Athens: U of Georgia, 2006. 138-46. Print.
McLeod, Kembrew, and Peter DiCola.
"Legal and Cultural History of Sound Collage." Creative
License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling. Durham: Duke UP, 2011. 36-74. Print.
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