Artistic Arguments Against Aggregating $$$

Both sides of this argument, pro-copyright and pro-artistry, have valid points they bring to the table. The intentions among these "sample and mix" artists, whether they are to be pure artists and craft pieces within their genre, or to take home their portion whilst piggybacking on the previous creativity of copyrighted artists, differ only by the rhetorical framing of their intentions, not the actions that got them to that legal/illegal grey area. Sampling is one of those grey areas, and any law pertaining to it should be ready to deal with extreme examples like Girl Talk or Danger Mouse.

At around the 2' mark, the artist Girl Talk states that "[he] doesn't want to hurt [anyone]" that he samples from, even showing his thank-you letter contained within his album's CD case. Whether that intention of thanks is genuine or not doesn't change the fact that in terms of earnings, the individuals holding the copyright could claim that the profitability off their work could be endangered. Money is being spent on music that Girl Talk didn't create from scratch, just mixed together in a unique way completely distinct from the original. This film brings up the debate over the cloudy definition of artistic creation, and the questions of what it means to be an artist, especially one looking to be compensated. The interviewee at the 37' mark made the observation that the value of music has declined steadily, and that record labels need to rethink the way music is sold and distributed.

At 10'15" in the film, Danger Mouse gives an interview stating his intention to simply make beautiful music using the media presented to him. Courts have to decide whether creativity is hindered more in what way, by punishing people for sampling, or by removing the protection of being a creator from the same people that would think of sampling as a pretty darn good idea. As Girl Talk stated in the same interview mentioned before (albeit sequenced differently), using the media one has consumed in their lifetime is unavoidable and comparable to there being more painters as a result of painting supplies being distributed with the same frequency and commonness as television, music, or film. People will use thoughts and ideas in all types of media, learned symbols and actions, and do with it with the intention of artistry regardless of other party's wishes. A challenging dimension to this, regardless of artistic intentions, is, of course, currency and compensation for creation.

The question of determining the line at which to identify fair and unfair use, whether it be through the perspective of artistic creation or even colloquial or business contexts of music, is challenging and is probably the cause of numerous headaches of multiple judges and others in the legal system.The big question there being, how does the court determine if the exigence of simple artistry enough, as well as if compensated artistry is enough, to warrant retribution.

Now, here is an interesting dilemma, if I cite a point in Miller's work which happens to be an original thought of another thinker, who do I cite if she obviously used academic sampling in her work? The argument seems transcends into another genre: what does it mean to be original?