E-Book Overview
Is music property? Under what circumstances can music be stolen? Such questions lie at the heart of Joanna Demers’s timely look at how overzealous intellectual property (IP) litigation both stifles and stimulates musical creativity. A musicologist, industry consultant, and musician, Demers dissects works that have brought IP issues into the mainstream culture, such as DJ Danger Mouse’s “Grey Album” and Mike Batt’s homage-gone-wrong to John Cage’s silent composition “4’33.” Demers also discusses such artists as Ice Cube, DJ Spooky, and John Oswald, whose creativity is sparked by their defiant circumvention of licensing and copyright issues. Demers is concerned about the fate of transformative appropriation—the creative process by which artists and composers borrow from, and respond to, other musical works. In the United States, only two elements of music are eligible for copyright protection: the master recording and the composition (lyrics and melody) itself. Harmony, rhythm, timbre, and other qualities that make a piece distinctive are virtually unregulated. This two-tiered system had long facilitated transformative appropriation while prohibiting blatant forms of theft. The advent of digital file sharing and the specter of global piracy changed everything, says Demers. Now, record labels and publishers are broadening the scope of IP “infringement” to include allusive borrowing in all forms: sampling, celebrity impersonation—even Girl Scout campfire sing-alongs. Paying exorbitant licensing fees or risking even harsher penalties for unauthorized borrowing have become the only options for some musicians. Others, however, creatively sidestep not only the law but also the very infrastructure of the music industry. Moving easily between techno and classical, between corporate boardrooms and basement recording studios, Demers gives us new ways to look at the tension between IP law, musical meaning and appropriation, and artistic freedom.
E-Book Content
this page intentionally left blank Steal This Music Steal This Music H O W I N T E L L E C T UA L P R O P E R T Y L AW A F F E C T S M U S I C A L C R E AT I V I T Y Joanna Demers THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA PRESS ATHENS AND LONDON © 2006 by the University of Georgia Press Athens, Georgia 30602 All rights reserved Designed by Kathi Dailey Morgan & Anne Richmond Boston Set in Electra by Bookcomp Printed and bound by Maple-Vail The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. Printed in the United States of America 06 07 08 09 10 C 5 4 3 2 1 06 07 08 09 10 P 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Demers, Joanna Teresa, 1975– Steal this music : how intellectual property law affects musical creativity / Joanna Demers. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8203-2710-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8203-2710-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-8203-2777-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8203-2777-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Copyright—Music—United States. (Music) 2. Composition 3. Intellectual property—United States. KF3035.D46 2006 346.7304'82—dc22 I. Title. 2005021226 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available CONTENTS Making Music in the Soundscapes of the Law, vii by Rosemary Coombe xiii Acknowledgments 1 Introduction Chapter One Chapter Two Music as Intellectual Property 11 Arrangements and Musical Allusion Chapter Three Chapter Four Duplication 71 The Shadow of the Law Notes 147 Bibliography Index 159 171 111 31 MAKING MUS