The Song of Theft Everyone remembers the ”Blurred Lines” scandal. The song that Robin Thicke and Pharrell William’s ended up losing thousands of dollars over. The song was noticeably similar to Marvin Gaye’s song “Got to give it up” and it turns out that the majority of the song was sampled Gaye’s song. Thicke and William’s thought it would be best to sue the gays first before letting themselves get sued, but in the end they realized that was a poor choice. The trial ended with the blurred lines men the losing the case to the rightful owners of the music, the Gay family. How would you feel if someone stole something of yours and never gave you credit. They became successful because of your ideas and all you can do is miserably watch there success. Fair use and Copyright laws prevent creators in the scenario from having to to watch someone steel from them, and with these laws creators can know what other creators can do with their creation. Copyright and Fair Use laws are essential in the music industry. Copyright is essential to protect the entertainment industry. …show more content…
People are not usually informed about what they can and cannot do with an Artists music, even Artists themselves. Fair use is usually determined by the purpose and nature of product along with the parts of the song they are using in comparison to the work itself (Drummond). There are three types of fair use: nominative, comparative advertising, and parody. Nominative fair use is the ability to use a trademark to compare or help describe another product. Comparative Advertising states that the product or service being compare is the same or at least similar to the other product or service. Lastly Parodies are funny exaggerations of entertainment that has already been established. This fair use type seems to be the most controversial (Celedonia and Doyle)
According to “The Changing Landscape of the Music Business,” Artists have to develop an image that appeals to the supporters in order to be unique. This can be achieved through the promotion of their music, but if the artist makes the wrong move, this can result in the artist struggling to sustain their career. There are many ways that licensing music can go wrong, with it either going into the wrong hands, or is abused with promotion so that the song isn’t enjoyed anymore, resulting in less sales or profit for the
COURSEWORK FOR CONTRACT LAW (MUSIC*) *On what basis does the inclusion of samples of a recording made by *Pink Floyd constitute an infringement of copyright? In civil law regarding copyright, there are two types of infringement; primary and secondary. Primary is concerned with the unauthorised use of copyrighted works and secondary would involve the dealing or making commercial use of such infringing copies. In the music industry, an infringement of copyright often consists of an existing piece of music being used by an artist without permission from the person or company who own the rights to the original music or recorded sound. This is exactly what has happened with Alexei Duff. He has used two samples from two Pink Floyd tracks and did not get permission from the appropriate copyright owners. If found guilty in court, this would be regarded as primary infringement. There is a lot of confusion about sampling in the music industry. Several think that if only a small fraction of a piece of music is sampled, whether it is a few notes or a few seconds, then it does not need to be cleared for use however this is not the case. The 1988 Copyright Act says that for an infringement of copyright to have taken place, the sample used must be of a substantial part. This means that it is the quality rather than the quantity of the sample used which determines if an infringement of copyright has occurred. In the case of Alexie Duff, one of his tracks uses a ten second sample extracted from the song “Dark side of the moon” and the sample is looped throughout the track entire. This means that the sample substantially contributes to the overall piece of music created by the artist and as the sample has not been cleared, an infringement of ...
Music censorship has been debated since the beginning of recording history. The censoring of music is the practice of restricting free access to musical works. Songs with strong language, racist views, or harmful references will have warning labels on them. There are currently no laws regarding the censorship of music. Censorship originated from a wide variety of motivations, including moral, political, military or religious reasons. The censoring of music is incorrect and should be eradicated. Music has been prominent in culture for thousands of years; it is a big contributing factor to moral compositions, for some it is a personal refuge, for others it is enjoyment, music is an important aspect and to censor music would be racially discriminative, insensitive, and detrimental towards society.
A major situation in which the music was used was massive protests on public property called sit-ins. Sit-ins were protesting strategies by African Americans during the Civil Rights Era where they would sit in on diners, bathrooms and “public” locations that they weren’t allowed and wouldn’t leave until they were given equality or service. During these protests, African Americans would sing songs of freedom and good times ahead and would adapt these songs from past songs of slavery and inequality were revived and reused from before (Stewart). Many white Americans would discriminate those doing this to try to diminish their morale on the right, but as a response the African Americans would continue to sit and sing s...
The purpose of this study is determine why and how African American music that’s is so deeply rooted into the community is being culturally appropriated. This is a topic that has been the on the foreground of race for years. Activists and celebrities like Adrienne Keene, DeRay McKesson, Azealia Banks, and Jesse Williams helped bring the issue into the national attention. Most of the world or better yet the appropriators have very little knowledge of what the word actually means. In order to understand the problem we must first understand the word Culture and Appropriation. Culture being defined as the beliefs, ideas, traditions, speech, and material objects associated with a particular group of people. Appropriation the action of taking something
Appearing in the 1903, The Souls of Black folk had emerged, a collection of 14 proses, written by one of the single most intellectual blacks in America, W. E.B. DuBois (Oxford Companion). This dynamic collection of essays reflect on African American history, sociology, religion, politics, and music. DuBois begins saying “The problem of the 20th century is the color line (5). This quote pronounces DuBois bases for his collection, that is being different form the others (Whites) makes you feel like you are being shut out from their world by a vast veil; hence the color line(8). On the other had we have Birth of a Nation, which comes out later in 1915 (TCM). Ironically it becomes the top selling film in White America during that time, but degrades everything that DuBois and another activist stood for. While DuBois hopes to educate White and Black America on their boundaries, the color line, the film’s director, D.W. Griffith, undermines these ideas. Defiling images of African Americans by distorting the perception of Blacks using stereotypical examples such as the mammies, mulattos, and bucks, Griffith tries to justify that blacks were inferior to Whites. In spite of the many controversies that are expressed in the film, it had become a known as the most innovative, American Epics and was a top seller during its time because of Griffith’s technical breakthrough and format. While comparing and contrasting these two pieces I hope to reveal to you this why this ‘double consciousness’ exist, even todays society as a result of these stereotypes displayed in “The Birth of a Nation.”
In today?s society, we value and learn to tolerate different cultures and people. Sometimes people end up expressing themselves differently as well. This country is based on the idea that we may express ourselves any way we want to, be it religion, organizing, writing, or speaking. Music has been a popular form of expression for centuries. These days, in the country best known for freedom, some people are trying to censor it the freedom of music. Music should not be censored along with any other form of expression otherwise what we and artists say are being controlled. If we value freedom, then that includes what we may say and how we say it even in musical form.
The Thin Red Line During the blood-stained war of the novel The Thin Red Line a theme is presented, "Only the courageous and emotionally strong-willed survive." Throughout the storyline, the army of men parading through Guadalcanal are bombarded with unpredictable situations and odds. Only the men with courage at their backs and their heads screwed on straight can get through this chaos.
The United States of America seems to be protected by a very important historical document called the Constitution. Despite the fact that it was written and signed many years ago, the American people and their leaders still have faith in the Constitution. One of the major statements of the Constitution is the First Amendment, freedom of speech. Although it is difficult to decide what is offensive and what is not, it is clear to see that songs of rape, violence, bigotry, and songs containing four letter words are completely unnecessary for susceptible minds to acknowledge. It is reasonable to say that more people listen to music everyday and for that reason, music tends to be more influential. The American people should consider the idea of censorship of music lyrics that influence violence. We as Americans, have the voice to make artists think about the harm that their lyrics can cause their listeners and possibly change their damaging style. I think it would benefit the American people to research the effects of music lyrics on people, debate the findings of the research, and discuss the consequences and possible solutions for the problem. Those who see no problem with the explicit and vulgar lyrics of today's music use The United States Constitution to back up their rights. This very Constitution was adopted by a convention of the States on September 17, 1787 (12) and has been a ruling thumb in the actions of the United States Government. The current date is April 21, 1999—that's 212 years later! This is where the very popular freedom of speech amendment comes into play. This Amendment states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exe...
Music censorship has been a major problem plaguing America for over fifty years. In 1957, Elvis Pressley was only allowed to be filmed from the waist up on the Ed Sullivan show (Nuzum 1). Plenty of controversy has taken places between then and now, but more recently it has become much more prominent in the media, and people and organizations are beginning to actually take a stand. For example, Island Records (owned by Disney) dropped the Insane Clown Posse just after their release of The Great Milenko and MTV actually refused to play Madonna's video for Justify My Love because it was considered too sexually explicit (Nuzum 1).
Music has always been a basic form of expression. From Antonin Dvorak, to Eminem, to even ancient, tribal music, it has been a medium through which individuals convey their thoughts and expressions. Today this medium is under attack. Everywhere we turn, everything we do and say is being scrutinized. We are being told what to say. We are being spoon-fed our emotions. No longer are we allowed to think freely, openly. All the censors out there are on the prowl for another piece to rip to shreds because it doesn't fit their description of what is decent and moral. What they fail to realize is that we don't make the music for them... We do it for release.
Music Copyright is a very important aspect of the music industry. The Copyright law was established to preserve the creativity and rights of authors, composers, performers of expression. Copyright is the law that protects the property rights of the creator of an original work in a fixed tangible medium. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/copyright) A fixed tangible medium is something substantial like copying lyrics on paper or putting a song on tape or CD. Copyright can be seen every where in the music industry. Many music artist of our culture today have been involved in copyright issues. Recently, on MTV news it was stated that, "As the music industry becomes increasingly concerned about protecting the integrity of artists copyrights in the age of MP3. Prince has now filed a motion in New York federal court aimed at shutting down several websites offering free downloads of the Artist's songs." (http://www.mtv.com…19990304/prince.jhtml) In addition, in recent music news, "Nine Inch Nails lead man Trent Reznor copyright infringement suit was dismissed. Another artist claimed that the Reznor had stolen material for his last album." (http://www.mtv.com…19991202/nine_inch_nails.jhtml) The copyright law has become an important legal aspect to know our music generation.
Copyright is not a natural process; it is essentially an agreement between the state and an artist, where the state gives the artist a monopoly on works they make for a certain time in hopes that this artist will continue to create more works. This agreement is beneficial for all parties; the artist gets money for their work (as no one is allowed to produce copies unless granted permission) and an incentive to create new works. The state has artisans to keep the public happy.
Today we live in a world that keeps us on the run. There is a way to get in contact with anyone at any given time. There is no such thing as ‘getting away’ because we have created a society of people that want to be found. But it is also through this technology, the same one that keeps us connected to the outside world, that we can get lost. The simplest video game can help a person escape into a different reality, spending hours on end in front of a computer screen, looking for nothing in particular on e-bay. This gets us lost. We engulf ourselves in things that have nothing to do with our daily lives because we’ve had enough, our life is too much to handle. So we focus on AIM, or video games, anything that can take us out of our life, and into something better. But then where do we draw the line? When does it become okay to spend an entire day on the computer because life was too stressful? Or, still worst, when the life we lead to get away, becomes our daily life. We lie about our lives and retell occurrences that really did not take place. Things that happened on our mental breaks become reality. These lies then have to proceed and grow, because we don’t want to be exposed. That cannot happen because that would add more stress, but what we don’t realize is that by perpetuating the lies we become more and more stressed. The exact reason we needed to get away has come back full circle. In the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? the line between truth and illusion has very nearly disappeared. No longer does the reader know when the character is telling the truth or embellishing a lie. Even still is the character himself is being honest to his personality.
Some artists create a mashup by combining copywrited material from multiple songs and more or less cut and paste sections together. One example of a mashup is “Pop Songs World 2015- Best Mashup 2015” by Yabanci Muzikler consisting of the top pop songs created throughout the world in 2015 (Muzikler, “Pop Songs”). Other artists create a cover mashup by taking an original song and adding their own instrumentals and or vocals. This is the media form I chose to demonstrate configurative culture. Another media form is through the use of video ads. One artist, ParkRidge47, chose to create a mashup between Hillary Clinton’s Vote Different ad and the Apple 1984 Super Bowl ad titled “Vote Different” (ParkRidge47, “Vote Different”). Regardless of the media form chosen to demonstrate configurative culture, rhetorical strategies used in each composition amplify its overall