Digital Sampling and Remix Culture: Creativity or Criminality?

Audio

01/28/2011

Jan. 28, 2011

Digital Sampling and Remix Culture: Creativity or Criminality?

Musicians have always borrowed from others -- tunings, vocal styles, distinctive phrasings. But the advent of the sampler in the 80s brought borrowing into the digital age. Today, "sampling," or lifting a snippet of someone else’s work -- anything from a horn hit to a drum beat -- is mainstream. But how to credit and pay those earlier artists for their contribution is where things get thorny. How much of someone else’s work should artists be able to use? How much should they pay for it? Is copyright law stuck in the age of analog?

Produced by Katherine Wells

Guests

Dean Garfield
President and CEO, Information Technology Industry Council

Washington, DC
Flora Lichtman
Multimedia Editor

NPR's Science Friday

New York, New York
Kembrew McLeod
Associate Professor, Department of Communication

University of Iowa

Co-producer, "Copyright Criminals" (ITVS, 2009)

Co-author, "Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling" (Duke University Press, 2011)

Iowa City, Iowa
Hank Shocklee
President, Shocklee Entertainment

Co-founder and producer, Public Enemy

Jan. 28, 2011