Very interesting piece of work. I figure a lot of you don't have the attention span for all of it. At the end of the video the narrator gives his conclusion. I've transcribed the following directly from audio but you should listen to the whole thing.
quote:
"Why do I bring any of this up? What is significant about the Amen Break? I'm talking about it here because I think it's story is a good example illustrating the rise and subsequent problematic of digital sampling in relation to today's increasingly stringent copyright and trademark laws. To trace the history of the Amen Break is to trace the history of a brief period of time when it seemed digital tools offered a potentially unlimited amount of new forms of expression. Where cultural production, at least musically, was full of possibilities by virtue of being able to freely appropriate from the musical past, to make new combinations, and thus new meanings. The story demonstrates that a society, 'free to borrow and build upon the past is culturally richer than a controlled one.' To use the words of Lawrence Lessig, Standford Law professor, copyright reform advocate, and confounder of Creative Commons - an organization offering a legal alternative to copyright control.
As we go forward, examples like the Amend Break will become more and more rare, if nonexistent. A 6th circuit appeals court ruled in September of this year, that recording artists must pay for every sample they use not in the public domain, regardless of the length or recognizability of the samples in question. But because of various changes of U.S. copyright laws, for example the Copyright Act of 1976 and the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act of 1998, which extend copyrights into the mid 21st century, virtually all 20th century cultural output has been locked away from the public domain - barred from sampling unless one has deep pockets and expensive lawyers. So it seems that companies like Zero G, with its attempt at regulating the use of and profiting from the use of the Amen Break, is helping to secure the supremacy of copyright laws while the company's very success itself occured because of a lack of strict copyright control surrounding break beat sampling. In other words, not only does the innovation within culture grow when copyright is flexible - so do its markets and capital. New trends are developed, new sounds are sought after, new releases are anticipated and become hugely popular - perhaps even selling out, new stars are born, and new fan bases are created. Money is exchanged. All in the pursuit of new forms of experiences of potentials for new connections and meanings.
I think the history of the use of the Amend Break demonstrates this. To cite Federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alex Kazinsky, in a copyright ruling last year, 'Over protecting intellectual property is as harmful as under protecting it. Culture is impossible without a rich public domain. Nothing today, like nothing since we tamed fire, is geniually new. Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion - each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Over protection stifles the very creative forces its supposed to nurture.' End of recording."
Basically the narrator is using the history of the Amen Break to demonstrate the direction copyright laws and intellectual property protection worries are taking us. If you've ever wondered where all the great music has gone and where all the legendary musicians are and why all the corporate cookie-cutter crap dominates the airwaves, you should take a knee and listen.
