Copyright Laws

The issue of copyright law has long been a disputed topic. While many people know vaguely what the laws are, they are very complex. According to the document “Copyright Basics” from the United States’ Copyright Office’s website Copyright laws “give the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following:

1) To produce the work in copies or phonorecords.
2) To prepare derivative works based upon the work.
3) To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending.
4) To perform the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works.
5) To display the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work.
6) In the case of sound recordings, to perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.”

How Long is a Copyright Term?

According to the book “The Future of Media: Resistance and Reform in the 21st Century”, “The first copyright law, passed in 1790, imposed a term of fourteen years plus another fourteen-year renewal. Terms increased slowly over the next hundred and fifty years, but in the past forty years, copyright terms have been extended eleven times. The two most recent term extensions were imposed by Congress in 1976 and then again in 1998.” (245)

In 1976, Copyright Terms were extended to fifty years beyond the life of the author. In 1998, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act “extended terms to seventy years beyond the life of the author for individual copyright holders, and ninety-five years for corporate copyright holders.” (245) This is where the copyright terms currently stand.

So what does this mean?

Copyright laws are stated in the United States Constitution, and they “give congress the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and investors the exclusive rights to their respective writings and discoveries.” (244) The original intent of copyright laws was to give artists and creators a limited amount of time to profit from their work before they entered the public domain for general use by everyone. It could be argued that seventy years beyond the life of the author is plenty of time for the creator to have copyright of the work and that the current copyright laws actually stifle the creation of new works.

Fair Use

Fair use is “a judicially created… exception to the copyright monopoly, in which permits an individual to use portions of copyrighted works for certain purposes without securing the copyright owners permission.” (245) The guidelines allow the public certain situations in which it is acceptable to use copyrighted work.
A work may be used for the purpose of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research. There are four factors that are taken into consideration in determining a fair use case, which were found on the Cornell University Law School’s Website.

“1) The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2) The nature of the copyrighted work
3) The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
4) The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."

Legal Implications of Remix Culture

Remix culture is not a new phenomenon. For at least the past fifteen years artists have “sampled” other artists to create new works that they consider their own. In 1841, the legal case Folsom v. Marsh decided that the main concern of copyright infringement is “the degree in which the use may prejudice sale, or diminish profits… of the original work,” as stated in the article “Girl Talk, Interrupted” by Chris Bodenner. The same article states that the first major lawsuit and challenge to the 1841 ruling occurred when the publishing firm Acuff-Rose Music sued the rap group 2 Live Crew for “mimicking” the song “Oh, Pretty Woman” by Roy Orbison. The case Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music made it all the way to the supreme court, where it was ruled that 2 Live Crew did not break any copyright laws because their song is a commercial parody.

In 1991, rapper Biz Markie was successfully sued by singer-songwriter Gilbert O’Sullivan for sampling his song “Alone Again (Naturally).” This case had a large effect on the blossoming hip-hop industry as it illustrated that a genre largely based on sampling of work was not immune to the legal implications of the practices.

Girl Talk

DJ Greg Gillis, AKA Girl Talk, has come under a lot of scrutiny recently for his work. Girl Talk creates “mash-ups” in which he re-mixes and layers songs from multiple genres to create new pieces of work. Formerly a biomedical engineer, Gillis has recently quit his day job to pursue his mash-ups full time. His last album, Feed The Animals, featured samples from over 300 different songs. Many people argue that Girl Talk’s creations abuse copyright laws as he does not seek permission from the artists he uses. However, Gillis feels that his work clearly falls under fair use guidelines. He even goes as far as to assert that his work actually helps the original artists. In a video interview conducted by the website “Ryan is Hungry” Gillis states that “I may sample James Taylor for twenty seconds on my album. No one is buying my album because they want to hear that James Taylor song instead of James Taylor’s cd. There is hundreds, maybe thousands of kids who e-mail me and be like “what’s that sample?”… They’re going to go download that song and they may end up buying that album.” Gillis argues that because his clips are short and his creations are so different from the original work, he is not affecting the artists’ sales.

Girl Talk v. Copyright Law

Gillis has stated that he does not get any copyright permission from the artists that he samples, yet as of an interview on http://www.techdirt.com/ on May 15, 2009, he also has yet to be sued for copyright infringement. He has, however, been used as an example in Congress as to why the traditional copyright laws need to change with the times. While Girl Talk has yet to be threatened with a lawsuit, his album “Night Ripper” was removed from iTunes and eMusic and according to Nielsen SoundScan, had sold 20,000 copies prior to the removal. His most recent album, Feed The Animals, was available as a pay what you want download through his Myspace page.

Girl Talk has acquired an important ally recently. Representative Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania (Gillis’ home state) has spoken publicly in support of Girl Talk’s work. In the New York Times article “Steal This Hook? Girl Talk Flouts Copyright Law” Doyle is quoted as saying “You have to look at the length of those samples… Case law gets built as cases are brought to court, and I think that more case law is going to fall on his side as this becomes more mainstream.” This supports the important point that digital technology and media editing technology is becoming more mainstream. The current copyright law as it stands hinders this mash-up culture. The article Girl Talk, Interrupted, from CampusProgress.com quotes Doyle as saying that “mash-ups are transformative new art that expands the listener’s experience… You can’t watch him perform and deny the fact that he’s creating something new and different out of the samples stored on his computer.”

Changing With The Times?

“The way the general public views intellectual property in 2009 is much different than in 1999. Look around the internet. So much content comes from pre-existing media. We're used to it now. Christian Bale goes crazy on the set of T4. That turns into a techno song, which then turns into a cartoon on YouTube, which will then turn into a T-shirt. Everyone is constantly exchanging ideas and building upon previously existing material. So the idea of a remix being a real artform is being validated in our culture every day.”

-Greg Gillis
“Girl Talk on Remix As An Art form”
www.techdirt.com

Video with Greg Gillis

What Do You Think?

Give Girl Talk a listen and vote in the poll at the top right corner of the page. Do you think Girl Talk's music falls under Fair Use?