Good Copy Bad Copy: Music as a Textuality

This was my second time watching Good Copy Bad Copy. The first time, I watched it for my WEPO class, and we discussed the concept of originality. However, watching it this time while also keeping textuality in mind, I have come away with a different understanding of the film.

In addition to originality, one concept that my WEPO class discussed after watching this film was, of course, copyright. Good Copy Bad Copy illustrates both the pros and the cons of copyright law. In another class, I learned that copyright involves the ownership of a given text (using the word “text” loosely) to protect the creators’ financial interest in it. One component of this definition that intrigues me is the emphasis on financial interest, as opposed to emotional interest. At 50:15, a Brazilian music producer points out that “[the artists] don’t want to make money from copyright, but from making shows and being successful in that way.” Although it is a generalization, his quote highlights an intriguing point about copyright. Artists don’t enter the music industry so that they can be overprotective of what they’ve produced (assuming that they were the ones who wrote the lyrics, put together the music, etc.). At another point in the film in which the directors are speaking inside a recording holding office, it is said that “nobody is being paid for them now, anyway … so no one would be worse off” (24:46). This is in reference to the records of music that are surrounding them and the fact that the artists who created the records aren’t losing out on anything when DJs like Girl Talk use them. In fact, I would argue that the remixers could possibly be helping them by getting their music out there, this time in a new and different form that will attract more listeners who then might be interested in looking up other music from the original artist.

That being said, it is certainly important for people to have the rights to their own work. I wouldn’t want to spend months creating an album just to have it ripped off and have someone take complete credit for it. However, that’s not that these artists are doing. It is stated in the film that “copyright is not about stopping people from using your work, but getting them to use your work legally” (30:37). I agree with this. It should be the original artist’s decision as to whether or not a DJ or remixer of any kind can alter the music that they made. Getting rid of copyright would equate to getting rid of people’s incentive to create, a fact alluded to at 33:55. At the same time, “freedom drives a more vibrant economy than restriction and control” (52:17). In other words, when artists are provided with the freedom to be creative, the content they produce will be superior and the economic state of the music industry today will be improved. A specific example that helped me conceptualize this idea occurred at 2:35 when Girl Talk used the metaphor of paint to describe using someone else’s music: “If people were passing out paint for free on the streets, there would be a lot more painters on the street right now. That’s what’s happening now with remix culture on the Internet.” With more access to the right materials, people have the opportunity to create beautiful art. As a context in which the message is the medium, music demands meaning. Music as a textuality demands that people have the freedom to create whatever they want to create, and copyright laws need to attend to that in order for the nostalgic love for and connection with music (mentioned at 37:13) that people all over the world feel to continue.

-          Sarah