Look at folk music - who gets credit/royalties for writing the melodies/lyrics? No-one - everyone lifts tunes from everywhere and no-one is bothered. It's just the precious jazz musos and greedy fatcat lawyers and popstars who get annoyed about it.
-----Original Message----- From: David Powers [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2002 7:13 PM To: jurren baars; 313 Subject: Re: [313] > can you post this to the 313 list... ? Looks like I get to play devil's advocate. Okay, how is this for an opinion: copyright is completely outdated and someday if humans evolve it will entirely disappear. The free exchange of information of all types is essential to human progress. The idea that information can be owned or contained creates inherently absurd situations, because the category of property is not adequate to the realm of ideas and information anyway. Furthermore: In classical music, John Zorn has written extremely interesting pieces that seem to be almost entirely collages of previous works of classical music, however these pieces certainly deserve to exist and have artistic merit, regardless of the intentions of the previous composers. In jazz music, it is common to quote a phrase from another song in one's solo: an intentional misuse of the original composer's melody. This has always been accepted as artistically valid. It seems to me that sampling is just one step further from these accepted practices. I say, let people sample their hearts out! The real issue is that artist's are not very well off in the dog-eat-dog world of capitalism, if all artists had the chance to make an adequate living, I feel that copyright would be irrelevant. As for Mr. Newton's case, it's unfortunate if his record company did not have his rights in mind when the Beastie Boys contacted them. However, does he own the "mechanical recording rights", because that seems to be what is under dispute. It is unfortunate that US copyright law has a bias towards traditional western notated music, BUT, why should Mr. Newton be so surprised at this. It would seem to be common sense. The copyright generally covers anything that can be and is NOTATED, not so much the concrete realization of a piece. It's no use blaming the BEASTIE BOYS for this, they did not write the laws. If there was a score with those specific multiphonics notated, then that would be covered. And, after all, the truth is it's quite possible that segment represented Mr. Newton picking up his instrument and improvising for six seconds, it's not really a phenomenal amount of his life's work or something. As to his court fees, well I feel bad about the guy, but think of it this way, the BEASTIE BOYS did not break the law, and yet they have now spent $500,000! Of course they can afford it, but legally that isn't really the point. Anyway I certainly hope Mr. Newton does not go bankrupt, but legally he seems to be on shakey ground. /dave AKA cyborg k jurren baars wrote: >> Come on don't be so dramatic about this, i think there are thousands of >> lawsuits like this going on right now. This is the 21th century be >> >ready to >> get sampled to death. It wasn't really smart of that Hewton guy to >> get >this >> case so big he is facing bankruptcy, the whole e-mail is a bit to >> >dramatic, >> oh i am loosing my house over this well if you don't have the money >> to >go to >> court then don't go! I really don't hope we have to discuss every >> >sample >> case on this list. > > > hmm, yes sampling is everywhere, but the point is that james newton > created the original piece; it's his work, so he has the right to do > with it what HE wants. but he should also have a saying in what he > doesn't want to have happen with his work [that's basically what > copyright is for] so when someone else uses his work he should get > aproval of the original author, the mere fact that this doesn't always > happen, but that doesn't make it right! how would you react if someone > samples one of your all time 313 classic pieces and turns it into the > cheesiest record ever and makes a uge profit out of it, it's not about > the money, you as an artist would feel violated, the rip off is > everything you are against, and you're not even gettting recognition > for the original work, doesn't feel so good does it? > > jurren > > _________________________________________________________________ > MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: > http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Any views or opinions are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Channel Four Television Corporation unless specifically stated. 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