Copywrong

 

 Negativland - The Sample Show (Part One) 

   

 Negativland - The Sample Show (Part Two)

 

Copyright Criminals (Or How Creativity Made Outlaws)

 

My friend, ndspinelli, mentioned he was soon going to see the great Clyde Stubblefield (from James Brown's band) and that reminded me I'd never posted this PBS program on the current ins and outs of sampling law - a major obstacle for recording artists today, myself included. 

Along with Mr. Stubblefield, it includes many of the biggest names in music criticism (Greg Tate, Harry Allen) label heads (the sour Steve Albini) lawyers, many of the artists and producers I've featured on TMR (George Clinton, DJ Q-Bert, De La Soul, Public Enemy and The Bomb Squad, Coldcut, Prefuse 73, Negativland, etc.) friends of mine (Shock G) all providing a nice over-view of opinions on how the art of recording is done, post-Sgt. Pepper's. I've used them all. 

Dealing with these issues (and how to get around them) is mostly how I spend my free time:

And I'm not ashamed to say, I've been away from it now for almost a month, and it's killing me,...

ADDED - a nice mash-up by the video editors Eclectic Method:

   

How Hippies Really "Go Green" (I Asked Frank Zappa)

Althouse says "some people find the humor inappropriate" over at Metafilter. "Some people" don't get that they're weird, which brings up an issue I'm dealing with at the moment: 

I'm feeling forced to abandon releasing an album - that I think is good, and a minor, but still important historical footnote - and all because of copyright law's creative (and especially financial) intrusion into how sampling was used when the tracks were originally made. 

Basically, I don't understand why someone can take a video of The Beach Boys, lay tracks of themselves goofing over it to reflect something new about the culture, and then put it on YouTube without getting into trouble - but there are restrictions on what another guy can do.

And mind you, I'm on the side of the guy who made this video - it's great.

Trying to get people to understand art (and utilizing technology, the process of making it, even today) is like trying to explain nuclear fission to retards. 

If you ask me, the very same artists who glorified in rejecting the culture (and destroying the country) now want to protect themselves from new artists - intent on reflecting what was created - because we can't have that, can we? The gigantic holes in the Baby Boomer's thinking shouldn't be exposed until they're dead, should it? Good Lord, look around: 

 Either hippies frame a discussion or it's almost not allowed to happen. 

 "Some people find the humor inappropriate" - yeah, I bet:

Oh, Daddy-O, how soon they forget,...