One of the most fascinating and fun parts of the 2009 Future of Music Policy Summit was the screening of COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS ? a documentary by Benjamin Franzen and University of Iowa professor Kembrew McLeod. The free movie screening at Georgetown University in DC (where Summit took place from October 4-6) was incredible. Of course, so was the conversation with Kembrew and Tony Berman of Berman Entertainment and Technology Law, who is featured in the film.
COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS examines the creative and commercial value of musical sampling, including the related debates over artistic expression, copyright law, and money. The documentary traces the rise of hip-hop from the urban streets of New York to its current status as a multibillion-dollar industry. Sampling, or riffing, is as old as music itself, but as technologies developed in the 1980s and 1990s that made it easier to sample existing sound recordings ? and when record label company lawyers got involved ? everything changed. Years before people started downloading music off the internet, hip-hop sampling sparked a debate about copyright, creativity and technological change, and the debate still rages today.
And COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS could be coming to your town, where you can catch a FREE screening! read more
