Class discussion was about copyright laws and what is considered breaking the law and remaking an idea tha has already been created. Music is big on taking older songs and remixing them or using certain lyrics or chorus from othe songs. The rap industry is heavy on sampling music from all genres. Kanye West sample music in majority of his records. I feel that if you give the proper credit or ask for the usage of the song then it shouldn’t be a problem. Another rapper, Mac Miller, recently got in trouble for sampling music from Warm Speakers. He is suing Mac Miller, Rostrum Records and DatPiff for $10M for illegally sampling his song “The World Around You”. Youtube users also have users putting up music unreleased music and being taken down because of copyright laws. Copyright laws are necessary because without them a lot of artist will take credit or not give credit for work that isn’t theirs.
I’m on the fence about music sampling as copyright infringement. I think that sampling is usually done in a way that completely changes the expression of the song. For instance, most of the sampling Kanye West uses is from famous soul/blues singers. When he samples their music, it is no longer made for a soul/blues consumer; it is for a rap/hip hop consumer. I do agree that getting permission and giving credit would be best, but like I said, I don’t really agree that sampling is copyright infringement.
I think that sampling can be a good thing or bad thing. sampling could provide exposure to the artist sampled or it could give the artist sampled, a loss of fans or exposure if the sample is affiliated with a something negative or hurtful.
It really does depend on how much of the original song is being used and what way it is being used. In Frank Ocean’s first mixtape, nostaligia, Ultra, he had like 3 or 4 songs where he used the back track of one song, and his own lyrics over it. In one song, Nature Feels, he uses that back track of MGMT’s Electric Feel, and in American Wedding he uses the Eagles’ Hotel California. On Wikipedia, there is credit given to MGMT for the production of Nature Feels, but not to the Eagles for American Wedding. This is probably because whenever he plays American Wedding live now, he uses a different melody because of the trouble he got in with Don Henley. I’m probably lucky I found a CD on Amazon with the original version of American Wedding with the Hotel California track being used because I have not been able to find that version anywhere else online. I guess Don Henley saw it more as an insult to completely change what the song stands for, than as a compliment for Frank to appreciate the beauty of it enough to want to use it. Oh well. In my opinion, both versions are beautiful, and Don Henley needs to learn to not get butt hurt so easily.
I have mixed feelings about sampling. Sampling is a good way to expose new music to different genres. It is also a good way to keep classic songs in play. However there are too many artists sampling material and not enough original music that gets played.