A few years back, I taught entertainment marketing courses with the sly Walter Benjamin subtitle of “The Work of Art in the Age of Infinite Reproduction,” which always brings up the tensions between art and commerce. Now, I’m involved in a social media startup and issues of intellectual property and users use, repurposing, and remixing of it is central to the value proposition.

I’ve thought about intellectual property {IP} issues for almost a decade now and how value is created and economic rents {profits} are captured. The music industry is changing, so that the actual music is becoming secondary to the music experience. The CD or MP3 is the loss leader, but the mainstream music industry has a hard time of letting go of the idea that IP rights need to be defended at all costs, even if it means suing college students and moms.

News of this documentary, Copyright Criminals {Amazon.USA}, came to me via Flavorpill {see link for video excerpts}.  It’s about sampling in hip-hop and brings up some interesting points about IP, copyright infringement, and the musical creativity. Here’s the trailer::

Here’s a sampling timeline showing the trajectory of the practice.

I’m looking forward to screening this. I’m not sure what the answers are in this area, but I think it requires a rethinking of intellectual property rights and creation of value that consumers will spend their money on. So, a lot of this is in the realm of marketing. I feel that rigid IP enforcement that isn’t contextualized is one of the problems with the music industry and serves to further alienate consumers/fans, as well as putting a damper on artistic creativity. Of course, the market could care less about creativity, just like so many consumers could care less about IP laws that are sporadically enforced or easy to circumvent.

In an interview, the filmmakers discussed how one of the challenges was the intellectual property used in the film would have cost $4M, but the fair use doctrine allowed the use. {Canada uses the fair dealing doctrine}. The following song is an example of a mashup that has been litigated literally out of existence, due to IP claims.

Twitterversion:: blog post on new documentary on music sampling and IP rights, Copyright Criminals. Links and trailer. Via @flavorpill  @Prof_K

Song:: Roger & the Goosebumps-“Stairway to Gilligan’s Island”