CCR(edux)

Sampling's Red Period?

Copyright Criminals: This is a Sampling Sport (qt)

Spotted this via Zen: Copyright Criminals, a documentary covering the creative and legal implications of sampling in music.

I already sounded off on this subject from a couple perspectives, and the doc covers a lot of my opinions already. That said, the sheer interview list is a geek's paradise: Harry Allen, Pete Rock, Matt Black of Coldcut, Q-Bert, Miho Hatori, DJ Spooky, Bobbito Garcia, Matmos, Negativland, Kid606, Saul Williams, Bobbito Garcia, Greg Tate and Prof. Lawrence Lessig. Here're some 'sampled' highlights:

Harry Allen: "Sampling is like the color red... Is the color red creative? Well, it is when you use it creatively."

Bobbito: "It was always a culture of borrow and take because it was a culture that was fathered upon a lack of resources."

David Sanjek: "Sound itself has a historical dimension."

Matt Black: "Where there's a hit, there's a writ."

Brian Zisk: "What copyright law is really supposed to do is protect people from creating things and then having to compete in the commercial marketplace against an exact copy..."

Prof. Lessig: "All of Disney's greatest works were taking other people's works and doing something different with them... that's the way creativity has always worked... we should celebrate that... What's happened though is because of increasing intellectual property protections is that this free culture that we took for granted for 180 years... has been transformed into a permission culture."

M.C. Schmidt: "Another danger inherent in all this is the cop in your own head."

Saul Williams: "To take all the remnants of the past and to make something new out of that is perhaps the intrinsic power of our generation."

Posdnous: "I hope Premier cuts my voice!"

Burgeoning artist-types may want to check out the Zen link or CCMixter to learn about the contest to mix audio tracks using samples from the film. One winner will have their work included in the final cut of the film, while the eleven runner-ups will be featured on an accompanying soundtrack CD.