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February 23, 2005
Copyright Criminals
M.I.A.'s Arular full-length was supposed to drop earlier today (er, "yesterday"), but as Pitchfork reported last week, the album has been postponed/delayed indefinitely due to some sort of legal issue related to the clearing and/or paying for a sample. I haven't heard any details on which M.I.A. song is causing the problem or what the specific sample is, but I did find it interesting that the day after Pitchfork's story came out, music journalist Sasha Frere-Jones followed up his own earlier comment/query about M.I.A. and songwriting credits with an extremely insightful note from DJ/producer Diplo regarding the various sources/inspirations for "Bucky Done Gun" (which is straight heat, by the way....if you haven't heard it, check out the minute-long snippet still available over at Soul Sides).
There seems to be something slightly ironic about the M.I.A. album getting postponed due to last-minute sample clearance problems, at least when you look at the big picture and compare Arular to its immediate predecessor, the M.I.A./Diplo promotional mixtape that came out last fall. The remarkably successful (and humorously named) Piracy Funds Terrorism, Vol. 1 was chock full of M.I.A. mixes and blends, several of which used copious portions of huge 80s hits from artists like Prince, The Bangles, Madonna, The Eurhythmics, and Salt-N-Pepa. Of course, mixtapes of this sort generally fly below the corporate radar and play by a completely different set of unwritten rules - rules that don't involve accountants or lawyers. But Piracy Funds Terrorism blew up way beyond small-time "underground" status - it wound up being the #23 album on the Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll and #12 on Pitchfork's best-of-2004 list, simultaneously fueling and riding the M.I.A. hype wave (a wave onto which I gladly throw a few more drops of water as I impatiently wait for it to finally hit shore...).
For me, part of the initial thrill of lisetning to Arular in its entirety was simply getting to hear all those familiar-sounding M.I.A. bits in a pure and undiluted form - unmixed and unblended. As if that sample-heavy mixtape had been completely cleaned, sanded, and refinished so that nothing was the left but the raw vocals and the real deal beats. So I had to chuckle and sigh when I found out that a legal problem with some small sample was going to delay and maybe even change what had already seemed like a newly realized version of M.I.A., one refinished with an awesome Pledge shine. I probably ought to hold off on the full-on editorializing until I know what specific M.I.A. sample (or musical interpolation?) is causing such a stir...but it's hard not to see this as yet another case of copyright laws rearing their ugly head and interfering with the creative process.
It'll never ever happen, but I'd love to see current copyright law amended so that there was some sort of compulsory or mechanical license for sampling, maybe something similar to the various mechanical licenses that allow artists to record songs written by other people. Granted, I think some of those "I'm covering this song" deals still wind up being negotiated with the copyright holder....but even those negotiations seem to be a formality, with set statutory rates. I mean, Creative Commons is a very cool utopian idea and all....and I certainly hope it has some positive effects in the long run. But let's face it, CC doesn't help at all if what an artist wants to sample isn't already licensed in that way. If only there were some sort of compulsory sample licenses and various statutory rates to fairly compensate for different levels/types of sampling, then maybe "permission" could be taken out of the equation and the arbitrators and accountants could figure out how to crunch the numbers after the fact? Of course, I am not at all knowledgeable about copyright law so perhaps I am missing some obvious points here. And like I said, it will never happen....since copyright owners have little incentive to weaken their own grip on their copyrighted works.
Back to M.I.A. for a second, I assume XL probably cleared "Sunshowers" with Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band back in early 2004 before that single first came out. I wonder did they have to then re-clear the song for re-release on Arular? And if so, were the negotiations for that much tougher once M.I.A. started blowing up and looking like an artist that could sell a crapload of records? Hmm, maybe they could've looked to Tony Starks for advice based on his own Dr. Buzzard experiences....
Anyone who has read this far probably likes thinking about sampling and copyright issues almost as much as I do...and thus might very well be interested in checking out the new trailer for Copyright Criminals (found yesterday via BoingBoing), a still-in-progress documentary about sampling and how copyright affects music. The trailer's a meaty 10 minutes long and features excerpts from interviews with everyone from Pete Rock and Matmos to Lawrence Lessig and WXYC alumna/Stay Free! publisher Carrie McLaren. Much like Lessig, McLaren has been all over this whole copyright issue for awhile now....if you haven't already seen it, check out her great illegal-art.org exhibit with all of its multimedia goodies and links to more information about copyright issues and related matters.
Posted by Tim at February 23, 2005 02:24 AM
Comments
Now that I've finally gotten the Go! Team record, I'm pretty sure that there are slim odds that any US label will want to clear all those samples- or run the risk of releasing it uncleared ("Exucuse me, boss someone named Archie Bell is holding on line 1"). There are no credits anywhere on the package...
I've heard that when Sire/Elektra picked up the Avalanches record, it took months and a mountain of money to clear that thing... Not surprisingly, after it didn't hit big, Sire dropped it, took it out of print and the rights reverted back to Modular. I bet there's a good behind the scenes story on all that...
Posted by: Stuart at February 23, 2005 12:25 PM
just a hunch, but i have a feeling diplo cleared what he used on the mixtape considering his (and his label's) knowledge of the whole rigamarole that would inevitably follow something as highly acclaimed as this release.
Posted by: Jimmy_tango at February 23, 2005 09:54 PM
Cleared the use of M.I.A. songs or cleared stuff like "Walk Like An Egyptian" and "Push It"? I have no doubt that XL gave the go-ahead (and probably the actual audio tracks/tapes/whatever) to use M.I.A. on the mixtape...but I seriously doubt anyone cleared those other samples for the mixtape. The actual album is a different story, of course...for all we know it could be XL's own overly cautious lawyers (and not the lawyers of a sampled artist) who are holding this whole release up. But I'm just speculating...
Posted by: Tim at February 23, 2005 11:34 PM
Hate to fan the fire already built on this record, since it gets harder and harder for anybody to live up to the stuff, but word I'm hearing is the copyright thing is a stall/hoax, b/c there are some majors going after it, i.e. p diddy could be strongarming it as his next protege project. the mind reels. ah, rumors.
ct
Posted by: Toenes at February 28, 2005 04:20 PM
MIA hits boingboing:
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/03/12/mia_for_intergalacti.html
Posted by: justin at March 12, 2005 02:36 PM