McLeod

Music sampling, after reading McLeod's piece, I realized is something I probably come across nearly everyday. Although I have never referred to the combined mix up and borrowed beats as 'sampling', it has since become a familiar concept. In his article, McLeod talks about how music and the laws following it have evolved. During the beginning of these "mash-ups" it is explained how bits and pieces of songs were extracted and put in different orders amongst other melodies and a NEW song was created. It was not seen as being replicated, however Bob Dylan is quoted in McLeod saying,

"I got a new one, it's called 'Emmett Till.' I stole the melody from Len Chandler. He's a folk singer, uses a lot of funny chords. He got me to using some of these funny chords, trying to teach me new chords. He played me these, said, 'Don't they sound nice?' So I said, 'They sure do'. So I stole it, the whole thing." (p.77)

Here Dylan is describing how he comes up with these 'new' hits, when in reality the different version is no more than a duplicate that has been slightly modified. Even though this was dubbed legal at the time, it was challenged some time later when copyright issues became a concern for music makers. This art of sampling then started becoming a problem.

With today's laws changing, it seems as if the copyright and potential "theft" of music or even lyrics is a big deal. But is it really? Is the borrowing of a mere few words going to offend someone so much that there is an actual need to sue for infringement? Or do these issues only arise because of our money-hungry society and culture that will find any motive to earn a few extra bucks? McLeod points out how these money-hungry companies, like Time Warner and Disney (already mentioned by other classmates), have called dibs on certain music and characters. Which in my opinion isn't ridiculous, but still leads to many other situations where copyright and stealing becomes an issue.

Even movies today have to deal with these issues, it's not just in music. For example, I read a different piece of work explaining how the movie Fight Club had to pay a woman to use her name in order to prove the movie wasn't about her. That to me seems absolutely ridiculous.

The point is stealing something is obviously wrong, we get that. However, the different copyright and trademarking laws that are applied to music and various other forms of media may be going to far in my opinion. Sampling and borrowing bits and pieces is merely a modification, and unless the pieces are completely unchanged, these companies that are out to make a few extra thousand a year clearly need something more to do. They need to quit wasting their time on labeling what is NOT able to be used by others and allow the creativity and free expression to happen on its own, without having to worry about getting sued over something so petty.