Class Manifesto Posting

This blog post is in reference to a class project on fair use in regards to the co-opting of materials from artists (music, or otherwise) to be used by other artists without getting permission we did early this semester. If interested, give it a read, if not, tune in next week for more exciting tales of college life of an adult student! See ya then!

I am all for the concept of Fair Use as I think artists around the globe should be able to take a snippet from here or a sample from there and turn it into their own piece of art. That’s the foundation of rock & roll and nearly all other types of music being made today. I can’t turn on my radio without hearing a new artist blatantly ripping off a riff that Keith Richards laid down 40 years ago, but they get away with it because they’ve changed/altered a note here or there. I remember reading at one point when I was a kid where Sammy Hagar said that when he writes lyrics for an album, he rips off bits and pieces of songs he likes and incorporates them in a new way so that it seems fresh and new, not regurgitated. The same can be said for newer DJ’s, remix artists, and basement kids mashing-up songs much like Danger Mouse did. Chuck D, of Public Enemy, has even stated that he fully supports other people remixing his songs/tracks without his permission. And this is someone who makes music for a living! Read the full article here: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/20/public_enemy.html.

Chuck D’s support falls right in line with Negativeland’s “Changing Copyright” manifesto. Negativeland reserves the terms piracy, theft, and bootlegging for those that copy entire works and then turn around and sell them for profit, but sees no harm in taking samples of music and creating something new out of it, and I agree. But I would add that you must credit the original source. Collage works expose people to all different types of music/art that might otherwise go unnoticed and if the original artist is credited then the consumer can seek out those songs/artists for themselves. It’s cyclical. It is one’s own ability to take something old (or new), twist it, and make something new/different that will take music, and art in general, into the future as long as the gatekeepers of culture are kept at bay. In Negativeland’s “Tenets of Free Appropriation” they state that “artistic freedom for all is more important to the health of society then [sic] the supplemental and extraneous incomes derived from private copyright tariffs which create a cultural climate of art control and Art Police.” In other words it is one’s own artistic freedom to do what they wish with what they wish, in this case music, and cannot be suppressed by any one specific authority regardless of ownership. And I support this point of view.

Communicating online is not going to go away; in fact, it will only assimilate further into our everyday lives. If I were to compose a piece of music I would certainly grab samples from existing artists and incorporate them into my own work and I think I should have the right to do so without the fear of being sued or having to ultimately pay someone for the use of said sample(s). As stated above, I would credit the original artist. As we move forward in this class I will certainly give credit where credit is due and if I get it from a source such as YouTube I will credit YouTube instead of the original artist as that’s where I got the information from. When making my audio post later this semester I will give credit to the originator of the material, whatever it may be.