Good Copy, Bad Copy: Is There Any In Between?

Good Copy, Bad Copy by Johnsen and Christensen shows, in a very effective way, different views on the ongoing issue of the copyright law. The ongoing problems that artists and producers often face are whether there is too much leniency in the issue with the copyright law, or too much fickleness. Debates on copyrighting are always and have always been up in the air and who knows if they’ll ever come down. This documentary shed some light on the subject of copyrighting and ultimately taught me to look at it from different point of views.

In the first part of the documentary, there is a lot of talk of a man who goes by the name of Girl Talk when remixing music. Girl Talk’s album stirred up a lot of controversy due to the fact that his album involved remixing other artist’s music. Girl Talk is known for blending different artist’s music and recontectualizing it in to a new art form. Girl Talk claims that any music that is made in to a new art form is legit and deserves to be heard (:25). He stated in the documentary that he personally doesn’t think he is hurting anyone by doing what he does. At 1:58, he says he did his own work, but owes the artists all the credit because they are blatantly on his album and he has a lot of respect for their music.

One part of the documentary that I found very interesting was at 3:32 where an attorney by the name of Paul V. Licalsi says “If you are a hip hop producer and you’re taking a beat from a piece of music, playing with it in the studio, and making it in to something else, you’re always risking being sued for copyright infringement.” This statement got me thinking about the term “remix” because, if a hip hop artist does take a certain beat or specific part of another artist’s song and plays around with it in his or her studio, then makes it in to something else, ultimately, that something else then becomes their own. After a song is remixed, I’m not so sure that an artist should be getting legality involved just because a part of their song is used in someone else’s work. The whole point of a “remix” is to make a song in to something else. Once the song is made in to something else by someone else, it becomes that person’s art.

That gets me to my next part that I find interesting because Lawrence Lessig agrees that that people should be able to reuse creative property. At 23:21, Lawrence Lessig talks about how many students use his books for their own work. Lessig thinks that reusing creative property should be allowed with all aspects of art, including music, and pictures that belong to other people. Lessig says that as long as the work isn’t completely copied or outdoing the original artist’s work, then he doesn’t see a problem with this idea. Creative people using other creative people’s work to influence their own work ultimately makes for that much more creativity. Artists of all branches should be flattered that they are someone else’s inspiration when creating new art forms.  

At 40:10, there is talk about music in Brazil that is called Techno Brega. This music is Brazilian music mixed with different beats, especially beats from the 80’s. I found this part interesting and most relative to copyrighting because of the fact that Beto Metralha, a music producer, not only adds beats from other songs in to his remixes, but he also removes the original artist’s acoustic beats because his music is all electronic. At 42:42, Beto says, “We can’t use the bass of certain songs because they are different styles of music.” He goes on to say that their style of music is different and that they need to create other bass lines with the same notes. This Statement got me thinking about miller and the term “genre.” Beto saying that he considers himself to have his own style of music is basically saying that he considers his music to be that of a genre. He calls his genre of music “electronic or Techno Brega.” Techno Brega is definitely a genre of music that belongs to Brazil. I had never heard of that genre of music before watching this documentary. Beto makes his music essentially in to his own genre because he adds beats and parts of songs from other artist’s, but he also removes parts and fills those parts in with his own creations. While watching this part of the documentary, I also thought of Ridolfo and Rife with the Maggie case. I thought of their term “recomposition,” which basically to me is another word for remix. Michigan State University tried to recompose or remix Maggie’s photo in to something else, while Beto is recomposing, remixing and rearranging music in to something of his own. Although it seems as though Maggie’s case is more of a legal issue rather than an attribution issue, I don’t think taking a picture and using it in a different context that’s appropriate is a crime.

I don’t think what Beto is doing should be considered a crime either. He says he finds a song on the radio, and then finds that same song on the internet, downloads the song from a file sharing service, and then sees if the song is suitable to be remixed by him. Many people dislike him for his method of finding and remixing music but in the documentary Beto clearly states, “I am not a musician, I am a producer.” Beto is not crediting himself as a musician; instead he prefers the title of producer. I personally don’t find what Beto does to be wrong. Because Beto is not trying to take credit for something he is not, I can have respect for him in the sense that I feel producing is merely a fun hobby for him and it doesn’t seem as though he is doing any harm or means to cause any harm to anyone. DJ Dinho, who is also another big producer, states that the music they produce is made to promote the artists. He goes on to say that they don’t use the music to sell millions of copies, he says it’s to give the artist attention and to get shows. Copyrighting issues will always be a huge debate world-wide, and what is considered right or wrong when getting in to the legality aspect of these issues will always be debated as well.

-Dina Kratzer