From: gtaylor@vme.heurikon.com (Gregory Taylor)
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.synth,rec.music.synth,rec.music.industrial,comp.music
Subject: Re: Make Sampling Legal...
Date: 25 Jan 93 14:35:14 GMT
Reply-To: gtaylor@vme.heurikon.com (Gregory Taylor)
Organization: Heurikon Corporation, Madison, WI

dippybir@tz.ucs.sfu.ca (# 1 1 6) writes:
>Your posts always seem very cryptic to me.  They have an outward 
>appearance of being interesting, then when I get into them I get 
>thoroughly confused.  

Thanks. I *always* come down on the "form" side rather than "content."
My PoMo credentials depend on it (pause to add marker to indicate a
certain amount of sarcasm).

If I understood you correctly, you've said that you 
>beleive that certain 'artists' who copywrite their material are doing so 
>not because they are concerned about a financial loss due to 
>appropriation of their product, but because they feel as if the 
>'stealing' of their work somehow equates to the stealing of their 
>character or soul, much like those natives somewhere who wont let you 
>take photographs of them.

Ah, not quite. I thought I said that the average and relatively unreflective
"artist" (who, being an inheritor of the vernacular Romantic aesthetic
which permeates the popular culture in which they move and breathe and
have their being) who'd be inclined to flame away because they've
invented a category of "others" (pesky afro-americans who have no musical
talent, if I read these posts) who are "stealing" and "killing music"
(whatever *that* means) might be doing two things at once - one of which
is out front and the other (in my opinion) would seem to me to account
for the vehemence of the exchanges.

The first reason is that they're comfortable with what seems a relatively
unreflective acceptance of the "standard" line about ownership, content,
and possession of ideas as codified in the copyright laws - laws which
I find a bit ah... biased (because of the categories of "original"
alteration which they exclude. Ask Gil Evans.) or unable to make a 
clear account of what the "thing" being claimed or owned *is* ( Is it
6 notes from the melody? Five? Is Paul Simon paying royalties to Bach
for "American Tune?" What is "fair use?" How does imitation differ from
appropriation and alteration?). That's pretty straight ahead, and Nick
Rothwell's discussion seems to me to highlight that what's important is
the way that one proceeds in the absence of clear rules (he's quite
clear about *thinking* about it).

One could, of course, choose to explicitly challenge those laws by 
finding ways to "break" said laws in order to define them further. That
kind of mediatic incursion is pretty common.

The second reason why folks might be upset by the whole sampling/copyright
brohaha is far less clear, I think - so much so that hardly anyone has
bothered to challenge it, even though it's a large and reasonable target.
The second reason is that the whole notion of "copyright" is rooted in
a set of assumptions about ownership, the status of recorded work, the
status accorded music in culture, and the status of "uniqueness" and
"originality" in the culture of the late 20th century. To challenge 
copyright is potentially a lot bigger than merely carping about your
richly deserved royalties and your seething anger that Public Enemy 
can't do their Czerny as fast as you can (but they're making all that
money you deserve instead): It's a challenge to the simple idea that
your tastes and your "originality" that the law seeks to protect are,
to some measure, illusory - and that that illusion is fostered in large
measure by a power structure that very much wants you to continue 
believing in your "uniqueness" so that you'll continue to consume and
produce according to their expectations of you. The nasty hard Behaviourist
version (which was always good for provoking fisticuffs at museum openings
in the 70s, as I recall) version of this is to say that you can no more
claim "credit" for your innovations than a goose can claim to have
"invented" the act of laying an egg. I ain't no Behaviourist, but I
hope you get the drift. Is this a little clearer?


>As for artists who don't copywrite their 
>material, you say these are 'thinly veiled attempts at exclusionism'. 

>But if you copywrite your material you are a money-grubbing SOB.  

No. You're merely choosing to participate in a system that makes you
feel good and "unique" in return for a few other little trifles. I'm
wondering what those trifles might be, in the end.

>Well I just don't know..  I hope most of the 'artists' who's albums I've 
>bought care more about cocaine & groupies than copywrites.  

Oh - here's another little neat hunk of the vernacular Romantic aesthetic
at work here: Our "geniuses" are "rewarded" and in their dissolution,
they create works which speak to the "soul" of our experience. Sometimes,
they "need" these special aids to break through the stultifying net of
conventions that bind the winged genius to the earth. Of course, their
groupies are emotionally in touch with this, and draw their sustenance
from merely (ahem) being near their every orifice. Right....

And remember - today is the first day of the rest of your life.
--
In the desert I prayed only for mercy, not happiness, not vindication, 
willing to settle. No price can be too high, no cruelty excessive if the 
end finds cruelty exhausted and mercy audible as a hammer's sound in rain.
Gregory Taylor/Heurikon Corporation/8310 Excelsior Drive/Madison WI 52717
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.synth