How Copyright Law Changed Music

Found on Techdirt on Wednesday, 02 June 2004
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Chuck D of Public Enemy has always been a strong supporter of freeing up music. Years ago, when Napster first appeared on the scene, he was one of the first to publicly stand up in support of Napster, and even went on TV to debate Lars Ulrich from Metallica on the subject. Here's a fascinating interview with Chuck D & Hank Shocklee of Public Enemy, talking about how copyright law forced them to change the style of music they created entirely. They claim that two of their earlier albums would be impossible to create today, but were possible early on when record execs hadn't trained their legal guns on music sampling yet. Now, those same songs, that used many different samples would be impossibly expensive. Chuck D claims that the group had to "change our whole style" between albums in order to take into account new copyright rules. Also, when asked about others taking their music and remixing it themselves, he says: "I think my feelings are obvious. I think it's great."

Have you never wondered why most music today sounds crappy and everything is more or less the same? There's your explanation: not the artists make music anymore, but the industry. So, if they are the new artists and want to protect the copyrights (and money) of the artists, this means...? Right, they want to make more money. Who would have guessed that?