How Copyright Law Changed Hip Hop
Kembrew McLeod’s story about How Copyright Law Changed Hip Hop in Stay Free! Magazine is an interesting tale of how copyright kills culture.
In the mid- to late 1980s, hip-hop artists had a very small window of opportunity to run wild with the newly emerging sampling technologies before the record labels and lawyers started paying attention. No one took advantage of these technologies more effectively than Public Enemy, who put hundreds of sampled aural fragments into It Takes a Nation and stirred them up to create a new, radical sound that changed the way we hear music. But by 1991, no one [...] sampled without getting sued. They had to pay a lot.
Remember: CopyFight.
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[...] In short, the value of these music publishers’ back catalogs is dependent on passionate individuals sharing their love and creating a buzz. Hip hop culture was created by sampling music that the record companies had largely forgotten. That sampling renewed interest in the original works and created a huge market for material that would have otherwise sat on the shelf. Artists can ask to try such things now, but the fact is that content owners just say no. DRM and overbearing copyright law eliminates the power of fans to spread the joy. [...]
Seems kinda true…