The interesting point made a few pages ago about P-Diddy and Sting is that P-Diddy actually reached out to Sting and go permission to do the song. I don't know if any money changed hands, but permission was freely given. So this one doesn't count.
However, Vanilla Ice completely ripped off Queen, didn't get permission, and wound up at the end of a huge suit that basically turned all the profits over. Point is, V-Ice stole, Diddy didn't. (Weirdly poeteic...diddy didn't.)
I'd like to get this back on topic a little. The one thing the movie RiP! didn't cover was how much was Girl Talk getting paid for his DJ gig and his Coachella show. I'm sure that wasn't meantioned becasuse it would have destroyed a couple of points. There are mentions of that they couldn't pay all the copyright license costs, but no mention of if they were compensated at all. Not being able to afford something is way different then just not being able to do something.
The argument in the movie is that copyrights are too protective and don't move culture forward. The fundamental argument is that since you have to pay for it, you cannot do it. Bad argument.
The record player as we all know it is actually worse in sound quality then it could have been. Thomas Edison created the phonograph, and his patents were normally so specific and tight that you had to pay him something at some point. He is maybe the most creative human of the modern day, but he made ooodles by locking up everything with patents and copyrights. However, in the case of the phonograph, some clever, creative individual noticed that one aspect of the phonograph was so specific that if they merely changed the direction of the vibrating needle they would be able to go around the patent. So they did. And everyone else followed.
Copyrights are not soo restrictive as to stop the creative process. That is my point. They are, however, protections that if you want to use the idea or item you have to get permission, which, today, is a license with a fee to be paid.
In all the discussions here the interesting thing is that most, if not all the bands wpeho are praised for their free approach are bands who ONLY made the money they have by the old method. THEN they were able to try something new, more as advertising then as the actual money maker. However, the business model argument is not what I am focusing on here. Giving stuff away for free as advertising has always been part of all business. The idea is to draw them into the store or to get them to buy something else.
However, P2P and bit torrent are NOT the artist giving the song away. (At least in most cases.) It is someone, not the artist, allowing the world to access their computer and TAKE whatever they want. I had this discussion the other day with a friend. Lets say you lend me your vintage '57 P bass. Then, I leave my front door unlocked with a note on it saying "Everythng in the house is free if you can walk in and take it." Your P bass is immedately taken by someone. Who is responsible for the P Bass? In the digital P2P world thinking the blame is on the owner of the P Bass who loaned the bass. After all, if they didn't lend it, it wouldn't have been in that house for someone to steal. Oh, and also, you should be happy because someone learned about it being your bass and they might come and watch you play some day, and you'll make money to replace it then.
In every other world, the person you lent it to is responsible for it, and for replacing it.
But, back to my original point. Money, fortunately or unfortunately, comes into the equation and is actually key to the equation. When I watch this movie, and the other about the rap artists, over and over they talk about the term "a sound." Its a "new sound" Or, "you can't copyright a sound." With todays equipment you can obviously take something and manipulate it so much as to not be able to recognize it as the original, then call it a "new sound." However, in my head, a new sound is something I create with my synthesizer that no one has done, or is generally new to the world. I have listened to some of the Girl Talk clips for this discussion and you know, you could create a lot of those sounds without ever having to use someone elses sample. I did it for two specific ones to make sure. However, it took me nearly three days to get one of them even close to decent. Therein lies the rub and my point.
Taking a non-public domain item and either re-arranging it or, like in a mash up, re-mixing it, is the easy way and generally requires no creativity. Heck, the drum loops he uses are obviously not original. Culture does not move forward, because he didn't place any real thought or care into it. He is good at manipulation of existing, but not that creative. And, had he had to create his signature stuff without using material owned by someone else, he would probably still be working on his first mashup style composition.
A couple of decades ago, for one holiday season, the Pet Rock was all the rage. Someone took rocks, cleaned and polished them, Painted them, put them in a cool box and sold them for a decent profit. Call it "re-mixing" of rocks. Hugely successful. Didn't move "culture" ahead in any way, shape or form. Lets see, it was built on something previously. It did something with a rock no one had done before. It celarly broke the boundary of "the past trying to control the future." Yes, the Pet Rock was seminal in moving the world forward.
No, it just made the world realize that people will pay for anything, and its easier to take something already existing, repackage it and then make money off it. Because in the end of the day, it all comes back to the money. The restrictive copyright argument is just a manifesto for someone to cry have's versus have nots. That is what the Brazil argument in the movie really is.
I find, Sundogue you are excepted here, whenever the "free" culture argument comes out, whenever someone starts moving toward communistic, worldly good arguments happens, it is always driven my lack of money or something they want, period. If you cant have it, it should be free so you can. The only items on this planet I will say that applies to is water and air. Everything else, not so much.
Girl Talk and the author of the movie RiP! avoid discussion of the actual need to do WORK. Creativity, originality is actually WORK! The ability to pay for use of a copyright means you have to do something to get the money in order to be able to use the copyright. WORK! Mr. Girl Talk could have quit his day job and spent all his time creating his mashup sounds from scratch. He could have recorded guitars, bass, drums, then eq'd them, put effects on them, THEN mashed them. But no, that would require ooooooodles of work.
The other point that I find interesting in the movie is the discussion about the schools teaching DJ skills. Under fair use, any song can be used to teach a skill or point. So all those kids learning to scratch a record or remix music? Unless I missed something, totally legal from a US stand point. Now, those kids going out and doing it for profit in their native land? Not so much, and doing something like that in the US, like it or not, requires you to compensate the copyright holders or have their permission.
Yes, I've probably written sooo many songs myself that I'm beginning to just rip myself off from something I wrote 30 years ago. However, people are still creating fresh lyrics, fresh melodies and new instrument arrangements enough that people still produce hundreds of thousands of songs a year without it ever coming close to violating the legal definition of a copyright.
