The music industry is changing. Anybody who's been paying attention to the past 10 years should know that. There are controversies to how the record labels react to technology's role, especially that of the internet's, in diminishing the respect towards copyrighted materials. Namely, their efforts in suing the fans for disproportionate amounts of money, more as a threat for others than a real hunt for justice.
Interesting to note—and this hourlong documentary serves as a reminder—that the fight had already begun about a decade or two earlier; started, not surprisingly, by emerging hip hop artists of the time. Names like Public Enemy and De La Soul are hip hop legends now, but there was a time when they were regarded as thieves.
Copyright Criminals examines the history of sampling and the close relationship between being brilliant mixers and outlaws. Once upon a time, sampling required only the keen ear to notice attractive noises in music and the creativity to reassemble it into something new (like scouring magazines for the perfect letter/graphic in your collage). As the practice became more mainstream and lawsuits crept out of the woodwork, these artists were forced to sample from a list of songs okayed by the label's lawyers.
It's obvious what the doc's stance on the controversy is. It interviews a dozen artists, from hip hop heavies like Chuck D and Mix Master Mike to underground rebels like Sage Francis and Eyedea & Abilities. Its one detractor, if you can even call it that, is a record producer who doesn't even believe the practice should be illegal, but nevertheless calls samplers "lazy," dismissing the turntable as a legitimate musical instrument and criticizing such artists for lacking the tools and honed aptitude to create traditionally-born music—which was the impoverishment that gave rise to the sampling movement in the first place. As the film restates, the practice rears its head most prominently in hip hop culture because of the limited resources of its innovators, forced to channel their desire to make music through the sound-makers at their disposal. In this case, playing around with their records.
A notable focus of the doc offers both sides of the argument, still on the same coin, arguably the grayest area of the topic. It interviews and talks about Clyde Stubblefield, James Brown's former drummer, who's widely known in the hip hop community as the most sampled musician ever lived (the doc plays many famous songs that have sampled Stubblefield's drumming taken from James Brown recordings, the list of which may surprise you), but gets very little recognition with the public. Because while it's easy to recognize "Superfreak" in "Can't Touch This" or "Under Pressure" in "Ice Ice Baby," the best mixers take only a snare beat or a grunt from here and there, making it virtually impossible to identify what is taken from where. Even Stubblefield admits he has no idea it was him when he's listening to a song he's sampled in.
Though a modest working club musician, Stubblefield doesn't seem to be bitter that his drumming is taken and reappropriated—he finds it more flattering than criminal, a stance anti-copyright organizations like Creative Commons encourage in artists—he just wishes that he could've gotten some of the credit. This viewpoint is also echoed by another interviewee, George Clinton, another often sampled musician (though he does have that big-time recognition Stubblefield doesn't).
The problem, of course, is when you give proper credit on the liner notes or wherever, you're giving labels the ammo to sue. Lacking the legal funds, underground artists have to stay just that—underground—in order to create the music they create.
DVD Bonus Features
It's always nice when documentary DVDs provide the unedited footage in the features. Copyright Criminals has three fascinating interviews with the film's three most prominent subjects, Clyde Stubblefield, Chuck D and the members of De La Soul. At about 30 minutes each, they make up an interesting narrative themselves, even if you've already seen half of them in the main doc.
Another feature that's appreciated is a series of videos by the Center for Social Media that explains Fair Use. They're previously-made videos that are online already, but it's nice that they're compiled like this with a relevant documentary, even if you can tell they're cheaply assembled.
The doc, as well as these features, are definitely educational, but it's pretty cut and dry as to what it wants to achieve and how it goes about it. It's a great DVD to pass along to others to see in order to open up discourse—in the spirit of fair use, that is.
"Copyright Criminals" is on sale January 26, 2010 and is rated NR. Documentary. Directed by Benjamin Franzen, Kembrew McLeod. Written by Kembrew McLeod. Starring Chuck D, George Clinton, Clyde Stubblefield.
