Topic 4 (Alternative)
Innovators or Pirates? Are remix/mash-up artists innovators or thieves?
This issue is relatively new in the music genre. with copyright lawsuits seemingly the "in" thing in the music industry. But that does not mean that the 'borrowing' of music originally performed or produced by others is a new concept. The world famous rock band, the Rolling Stone's, who themselves successfully sued English indie rock band 'The Verve' for plagiarising a guitar riff in their song "Bitter Sweet Symphony" (1999) have openly admitted to using old blue's riffs from American artists.
However the trend for borrowing or "sampling" another artist' track is seemingly more popular in the dance, hip/hop and rap scene. A popular case from the 80s was the copyright case between rapper Vanilla Ice, and two British rock heavyweights, David Bowie and Queen, who believed that Vanilla Ice stole their bass riff from "Under Pressure" and used it in his song "Ice Ice Baby" (2012) without permission. The lawsuit was settled out of court for a high fee.
But just what is the difference between plagiarism and copyright infringement?
There are some similarities, however they are distinctively different. Plagiarism is claiming attribution for something you did not author or using someone else’s work and not giving them credit, where as copyright infringement is using someone else’s work without getting their permission.
Lawrence Lessig, a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, explains in his book 'Rip: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy" (2009) how remix artists, such as; Pitbull, Dr. Dre, Girl Talk et al. should be able to avoid piracy claims on the grounds of the importance of creativity.
Lessig argues about the importance of creativity being able to be built on the foundations of culture that already exists, a pathway only open if the extremes of copyright are sobered and a shared, free commons is actively promoted and created.
The core of this argument is a question about what kind of world we want to create for future generations. Lessig presents an argument that the natural way humans interact with content is to remix it, as we are used to doing with text. Just as we take no offense when somebody quotes our text in their own communication, we should resist the urge to control "quoting" of our digital content.
REF
Lessig L, 2009, Rip: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, Penguin Books, New York.
Pescovitz D, 2012, ‘Vanilla Ice vs Queen/David Bowie', 25/08/2012, http://boingboing.net/2012/11/01/1990-vanilla-ice-on-ice-ice.html.
Willcock J, 1999, 'Who's suing whom: Bitter Symphony as the Verve sued by Oldham', 25/08/2013, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/whos-suing-whom-bitter-symphony-as-the-verve-is-sued-by-oldham-1046409.html
Very interesting piece here, Ryan. I think that this is one of the more pressing issues of the 21st Century, because there are so many different types of music out there and because - as a young, partying 21 year old - I can instantly come up with about 15 different examples of people using other people's music.
ReplyDeleteI found that this topic was held throughout the blog, and the references were very good, linking back to the issue and reiterating it to us.
I liked the fact that you put in bold the main issue and description, making sure people paid particular attention to that part of the post.
The only issue is that when referencing, be sure to include the name of the main author, because it looks like (in this particular case anyway) that the song Ice Ice Baby was written in 2012, which is definitely not correct.