“Everyone has been bombarded with media. We’ve almost been forced to use it as an art form. It’s like anything. If people were handing out paint for free on the streets, I’m sure there would be a lot more painters right now.”
Gregg Gillis – DJ (Girl Talk)
I watched this insightful documentary last week – Good Copy Bad Copy. It’s an look into copyright and culture and how it is affecting people around the world. We are taken through the issues like sampling in hip hop involving NWA and the copyright issues over Dangermouse’s Beatles/Jay-Z mashup album The Grey Album (A professor quips during the film – “The Beatles lawyers must have made some money but no-one else did”) , Creative Commons, and MPAA’s attempt to shut down the Pirate Bay and an interview with Girl Talk (Good article from Newsweek about what happened when Gillis met a US congressman).
Amongst the most interesting segments include a trip to Russia to look at the rampant bootlegging that goes on there, the perspectives of the Nigerian film industry and the Techno Brega musical movement in Brazil.
What becomes obvious to the viewer, like Jim was talking about recently, is the death of the current business models used by the record industry and the lack of control which is becoming more prevalent in the current consumerist climate. The old vanguards are fighting to retain their revenue while people are endlessly re-using and recycling copyrighted material in order to create new art-forms. It’s the clash between cash and culture that so often leaves us divided.
Take a look at the documentary below or (legally) download the film as a torrent from the site.
[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-166095432964105847[/googlevideo]
As this is an MP3 blog, I can’t think of anything more appropriate than posting a song from The Grey Album. The irony is not lost on me. The Beatles sample in this song is from “Mother Nature’s Son”.
MP3
[audio:https://nialler9.com/mp3/DJ_Dangermouse_-_December_4th.mp3]Read more about The Grey Album.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005 . He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, club promoter, event curator and producer of gigs, listening parties & events in Dublin.
Jeez Luis, just watched this whole thing…techno brega yeah!
*maebh
Jeez Luis, just watched this whole thing…techno brega yeah!
*maebh
Great film. A must see. I’ll have to throw “Night Ripper” on now.
Great film. A must see. I’ll have to throw “Night Ripper” on now.
Hey nialler
Really enjoyed this too – thanks for pointing me in its direction.
Hey nialler
Really enjoyed this too – thanks for pointing me in its direction.
i think girltalk does some interesting work but as an artist selling songs he should not make money off of his heavily sampled music.
all he is doing is rearranging preproduced loops of popular songs. it would be different if he was reprogramming or rewriting whole sections or writing new melodies or drum loops but he isnt.
arranging and recording the drums on a dr. dre beat is expensive. writing a good synth melody for a new order song is difficult. writing rhymes and spitting them flawlessly is hard as shit.
as a dj its fine if he mashes everything up and makes a patch work song. thats great. but you cant sell that shit. its not new music. its a mixtape.
think about it. if you blended two songs together you couldnt sell the result. he just does that on a micro level.
i think girltalk does some interesting work but as an artist selling songs he should not make money off of his heavily sampled music.
all he is doing is rearranging preproduced loops of popular songs. it would be different if he was reprogramming or rewriting whole sections or writing new melodies or drum loops but he isnt.
arranging and recording the drums on a dr. dre beat is expensive. writing a good synth melody for a new order song is difficult. writing rhymes and spitting them flawlessly is hard as shit.
as a dj its fine if he mashes everything up and makes a patch work song. thats great. but you cant sell that shit. its not new music. its a mixtape.
think about it. if you blended two songs together you couldnt sell the result. he just does that on a micro level.
the videos brilliant niall go on creative commons!
the videos brilliant niall go on creative commons!
i think girltalk should get paid for his work, cause not everyone can blend music like him. there are lots of artists out there that just do all rock, all hip hop and stuff. to put all of that together is a different thing, also a difficult one.
about getting money for mixtapes, take the Fabriclive series for example. those are DJs doing mixes for cd print and they get money off of that. it’s similar to what girltalk does, but no one questions the validity of that.
i think girltalk should get paid for his work, cause not everyone can blend music like him. there are lots of artists out there that just do all rock, all hip hop and stuff. to put all of that together is a different thing, also a difficult one.
about getting money for mixtapes, take the Fabriclive series for example. those are DJs doing mixes for cd print and they get money off of that. it’s similar to what girltalk does, but no one questions the validity of that.
never before has a dj set made me feel violently ill and really really angry until I had the had the displeasure of seeing girltalk…he finished his set off with a self indulgent crowd surf and (shit) rap over some beats “this is how we do it in pensylvania!”
fuck off
never before has a dj set made me feel violently ill and really really angry until I had the had the displeasure of seeing girltalk…he finished his set off with a self indulgent crowd surf and (shit) rap over some beats “this is how we do it in pensylvania!”
fuck off