Last Friday, over a sausage and onion pizza at John's Pizzeria in Midtown, my friend Matt and I discussed the quagmire that is copyright law. Turns out, there are some interesting things that apply to music vs. literature.
I was unaware for example, that you can cover anything you want without permission. Yes, you have to pay some license fees whenever you record, perform, or otherwise 'act' it, but this is an established process and honestly, no one really enforces the live performance part you are actually successful (or U2 (BTW, fuck U2)). Personally, I think this is the bee's knees. As part of the gospel of Scott Sandage, covers and interpretations are an important part of musical evolution. Without them we'd be spinning our musical wheels so to speak, wearing the groove but not much else. Not to mention the power a cover has in connecting an entirely new audience to an older song (i.e. The Fugee's cover of Roberta Flack's Killing Me Softly)
Contrast this with sampling. You can't sell a record without sample clearance in most cases; as a result many great songs end up on unmarketable mixtapes. What does that mean for the artist? Less creative freedom. What does it mean for the consumer? Less choice. Of course, there are plenty of stinkers that come out of sampling. The Diplomats catalog is proof enough that some 80's Rock and R&B tracks needs to be left alone.
Printed works seem to go in reverse. You can write a book that lifts entire passages from another work as long as you properly cite the source and don't claim that it is your own original work. And you can sell your book, without paying the cited author anything, as long as you followed the correct citation protocol. However, you can obviously not rewrite the original work in your own hand and sell it. (Note: do not hand in a paper written by someone else, cite your source, and expect to get an A). While this is the basis for all plagiarism, comparatively few cases are ever pursued in the music industry, (outside stuff like the Vanilla Ice vs. Queen thing or the Milli Vanilli debacle).
Granted, my analogy is less than perfect, and my underlying arguments are based on a 30 minute conversation that I had while sick with the Stern Flu - so be still your raging heart - misinterpretations/totally wrong things may have been made or said. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am below.
Regardless, what I find so interesting about this, is how these essentially opposite use schemes have allowed both music and literature to grow effectively. Where else is that true?
Unrelated but still cool: Tomorrow is the first day of the the A3C Hip Hop Festival in Atlanta. The schedule of performances is here. If you are down south, I would recommend going - since I can't. I think you can still get cheap(ish) tickets online and around.
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