Post #1 Good Copy Bad Copy

Good Copy Bad Copy brings out something that is not only wrong in the music industry, but something that is wrong with every business, everywhere.

While watching this, I was shocked at the minute amount that it would take in order for someone to get sued, or accused of copyright infringement. The first example in the movie was the eye-opener, “Two seconds were taken from Get Off Your Ass and Jam” (Paul V. Licalsi 5:14). Two seconds is all it takes. The sample that NWA used from the song Get Off Your Ass and Jam, was barely noticeable, it’s sad to learn that this is all it takes for a lawsuit to happen. This movie defiantly plays with text as being a paradox simply because the entire movie deals with something that we now call “mash-ups”. The mash-up is usually a huge collage. These collages are filled with music from many different “genres” yet it is something that has been put into its own genre. This is the issue. These texts (mash-ups) have multiple messages from multiple genres and places and people, it seems to diminish the text by trying to classify it into one genre when it is exactly the opposite. Another scene from the movie surprised me as much as the last example. “I’d be happy to pay royalties for every sample on the record, but that’s not what it’d be, you know, to actually license a sample would cost millions of dollars, which I can’t afford” (Girl Talk 12:30). The outrageous amount that it would take in order to use all of the songs that are sampled would amount to millions of dollars. This limits the creativity that an artist can have. People sometimes make songs that just happen to sound similar to a song that was made in the past. That in itself is trying to limit the limitless (turning the paradox into a work). Placing a hold on a sound just because it is something that was created before. Recurrence is implied by our understanding of situations as somehow “comparable,” “similar,” or “analogous” to other situations” (Miller 155). “It defies human nature that somebody will come up and they’ll paint a picture, or do a statue and just give it away. There may be a few people like that, but they probably don’ eat very well” (Dan Glickman, CEO MPAA 53:10). I find this statement interesting because once again this is trying to apply a limit to that which is limitless, assuming that the only reason or motive behind making text is because of the need for money. “Exigence is a set of particular social patterns and expectations that provides a socially objectified motive for addressing danger, ignorance, separateness” (Miller 158). This money standard that we see is something that restricts the creative process. This could be considered a form of making a genre. By putting work or texts that “want to make money” into a group and others that are strictly for distributing without the intention of making a profit could be another.