final part 1

When topics of ownership, composition, technological advancements in the musical realm, and authorship are brought into the dialogue concerning the legal dimensions of music copyright nothing less than confusion ensues. Particularly in recent times, much more of a fuss seems to be made about the gray areas that musical technologies such as digital sampling have caused in artists’ attempts to bridge the technosphere. With the advent of digital sampling and turntablism, an unprecedented blurring of traditional lines began between the roles of producers, performers, composers, and arrangers. Technological developments have made the process of music-making more democratic or “in the recording studio, the roles…have become increasingly fluid, with an given individual filling sometimes more than one role” simultaneously (Music and Copyright 143). However, it is important to note that these changes are rooted in history and are not merely popping-up recently. Controversies surrounding the remixes, sampling, and the phenomenon of viewing recorded sounds as unfinished have a historical context worth exploring.

The film RiP! highlights the issue of music copyright laws in a fascinating way: the copyright’s legal grip on cultural materials hinders present and future artists from building off of premade items (in the specific case of music)—thus smothering a great deal of creativity and cultural growth. Or at least, so says the self-titled copyleft. Theberge states under a section of his piece titled “Burden of History” (no doubt where his loyalties lie on this contentious issue) that from the conception of copyright law it has “valorized composition…over performance as a form of musical practice” (140). This emphasis on composition makes sense because at the time, performance could not be fixated and thus “did not lend itself to the evolving economic system based on fixed commodities and exclusive property rights” (140).

Additionally, copyright laws have primarily and sometimes exclusively served the economic interests of publishers and composers, while more collectively created and owned forms of music such as jazz, folk, and indigenous pieces are not very well-served by the collection of laws—though it is clear that materials of this nature can still be ‘stolen’ or culturally appropriated as seen in past readings concerning Herby Hancock and Madonna. The point I am attempting to illustrate here is in support of the copyleft’s general idea about the legal repression of artists: copyright’s basis for creation was founded in an individualist ideology and economics, rather than being based in the furthering of culture.

Moreover, it is clear that issues with ownership were becoming muddy with the dawn of tangible music, i.e. the record. The record was one of the early musical scandals of technological advancements. Music-lovers could now own their favorite songs in a form that was tangible, repeatable, and as seen later, could be potentially manipulated. The previous temporal and spatial limitations that live music possessed were no longer. Not only could consumers have a bit of legal ownership to a physical item of music, but recording companies could literally own the recording. A trend is appearing here: a performer absent of legal ownership rights, unless they also act as the author and/or composer. Not until the Rome Convention of 1961 would copyright laws begin recognizing performers as having rights under copyright law, and even then, their rights were situated on the low end of a legal hierarchy.

Years after the record and phonograph/gramophone were introduced came the wartime technology of the radio, which greatly improved the microphone’s quality. The microphone of course, became and an integral piece of recording studio equipment. This novel development also spawned new intimate musical styles (such as crooning and other techniques either played on instruments or sung softly) of which iconic figures such as Frank Sinatra participated in.

Then in the 1960s multi-track recording changed the face of musical production and creation. With the new room to manipulate and experiment with their creations, “musicians began to…regard sound recording not simply as a means of reproducing music but as an integral part of musical creation” (Theberge 146). Musicians were now able to act as their own producers, composers, arrangers, and/or sound engineers and vice versa! A great example of a producer has often been viewed as playing the role of a musician was the fifth Beatle: George Martin. The studio became an instrument in itself, where music and sounds were being created exclusively—without being recreated in live performance. Oh, and did you notice how copyright laws divide the musical work away from its physical recording and process of recording? The experimental music made in the studio—which was viewed as an instrument—showed this distinction to be an artificial and untrue one by synthesizing both the process, product, and the creative work put into it the recording. Even in the 1960s copyright laws were showing to be a burden to the creative process and that was roughly fifty years ago! In Theberge’s section titled “A New Mode of Production”, he hits the target by stating that “traditional assumptions surrounding musical authorship simply do not hold” when the lines between roles such as producer, musician, composer, etc. begin to be blurred.

Problematic copyright matters have only multiplied since the 1960s with sound developers, the use of turntables as performance instruments, digital sampling technologies, and internet file-sharing. Those with access to a computer can now illegally upload all of their music, video, and picture files onto the internet for other users to download. Many music consumers have opted-out of the traditional ways that one could obtain music and turn to outlets such as iTunes’ store where songs can be purchased individually or within the context of an album. However, many fans chose to flee the monetary confines of obtaining music altogether by illegally downloading torrents or file sharing via programs like Napster and Limewire—giving birth to a whole can-o-copyright-worms. Though there have been many lawsuits attempting to make examples of these citizens illegally sharing and downloading music, the sharing has not ceased and in fact, the movement towards free and illegal files has gained momentum.

To take it even further, people are illegally acquiring music that they could potentially make remixes or mash-ups of! Of course, this is not to say that all remix and mash-up raw materials are found illegally—but the potential is there. We must now ask the question: are sounds objects of value that can be owned? “Sound developers have staked a claim to the aesthetic and economic value of their work…[and] have helped to reinforce the notion that individual sounds can be considered as aesthetic objects and, as such, assigned commercial value” (Theberge 146). This is obviously important in the hip-hop, rap, and electronic music communities because not only are many of the sounds utilized in creating this music developed by computer programmers/sound developers, but much of it is sampled from other musical artists. Take DJ Shadow for instance: he could use up to thirty samples from thirty separate tracks in order to create one song for his album. If every one of those samples is priced at a low-balled bargain $1,000, is it reasonable for him to pay even the sale-sticker $30,000 purely for the raw song materials to make one track? Is this a reasonable request to make; better yet, is it even possible for most artists? I think not. The issue here is the unnecessary emphasis that copyright laws make on “isolated fragments of sound as objects of exchange” while they almost completely “ignore the significance of the creative uses to which they are put” (Theberge 147). It is important to view the songs as raw materials, rather than stolen goods because they are often times undergoing major reconstruction to the point of unrecognizability. Viewing sampling as an artistic style challenges traditional conceptions of recorded music as being a finished piece of work. Also, this notion adds the importance of originality when deciding whether one has stolen or used another artist’s work inappropriately.

This brings to mind another issue I have with the current copyright laws: how they perceive artists. As we have seen, creators with rights to their music are able to file lawsuits on proceeding artists who have illegally copied unfair portions of their work. This view implies that the original artist created her/his pieces within a vacuum of little-to-no influence or copying. I have to agree with the copyleft here: culture always builds on the past and thus, must disagree with the copyright: romantic notions of solitary artists are simply falsehoods. Past works will always influence, inspire, and act as building blocks for the foundation of present and future artists. Thus, I see a definite need for altering copyright laws for though new technologically advanced practices “may appear to be the negation of older forms of musical practice…they in fact…displace them, forcing a redefinition of our notions of creativity and originality”—novel approaches to music-making have brought to our attention a systematic belly ache (Theberge 153). I like to think of this in terms of Kuhnian paradigm shifts: once an anomaly has been found (in this case, the issue of copyright oppressing new artistic practices and thus, cultural growth) within a paradigm, it is focused on until a resolution is discovered, and *voila* we move into a new paradigm. Indeed, the new paradigm will need to expand the outdated terms of those before it, to include a more up-to-date set of views and values on virtual file-sharing and the artistic expression made possible by recent technological developments.

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