Intellectual Property, Copyright & Reggae Music
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Artist:
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Track:Rampin Shop
Someday, when I have more leisure time, I'd love to write a long, quality post here about reggae music, copyright/copyleft, sampling and riddim culture. But even if I did, I probably couldn't say it better, nor with more authority and experience, than my friend Ripley. A respected writer/thinker/blogger and mixologist, Ripley is fairly well-known online and off as a fan of reggae music (especially its off-shoots like jungle and breakcore) and its culture. She's a genius (and super-woman) who not only did her grad work at UC Berkeley, but also spends a lot of time on the scene - whether it's in dirty underground warehouses on the west coast, upscale cafes on the east coast, or in the gullys and studios of Jamaica, she's been there and is doing that.
So when I recommend Ripley's work/blog/articles/mixes or anything else she's created, you can be sure that it's a must see/hear for any fan of reggae music, as well as any music lover interested in the changing/evolving dynamic between songwriter, producer, musician, singer, remixer, publisher, etc.
With that said, check out this post on her blog which explains reggae riddims, re-licks and rightful ownership, as experienced by Dave Kelly (owner of Madhouse Records) and Vybz Kartel:
Reggae Inna Di News As Interpreted By DJ Ripley
And if you learn something, the best Thank You is to leave a comment. Let her know that you benefited from her wisdom. And, if you still feel chatty, feel free to leave a comment here as well....
Comments (12)
Don't have time to digest now...but looks very interesting. I'll Check It. Thanbks ms.fire
It seems like desperate times..popular music has always been filled with reuses. I always find it rediculous when it gets to the lawyer level.
Great discussion and a lot of it, operating on many levels.
The main thing for me is that we need to have a discussion about what it means when people put somethng out in the world..I always thought people should be able to use samples and riddims, but credit (not necessarily money) should be given.
This will be interesting. IMO copyright is completely broken and needs not fixing but rebuilding. Look forward to it - thanks for the link.
A lawyer writes;
The real reason for the vast burgeoning of "versioning" is much older. When Jamaica ceased to be a British colony and became an independent Commonwealth state, it did not sign up to the 1894 Berne Convention on International Copyright. Instead, and as pushed by record label owners, Jamaica ploughed its own quirky furrow, wherein copyright rested with the legal owner of the sound recording (inevitably, the owner of the studio), rather than the creators of the musical work itself. This anomaly persisted until 1994, and allowed JA producers to release covers of US pop tunes without paying royalties; then Joe Gibbs dd it with a cover of a huge country-pop hit, and had his ass sued off him.
The history of JA music is full of examples of singers who took two weeks to scrape together the cash to buy the tape of their song, only to find it already in the shops as by *Shark Bastard Producer Allstars*, and of singers playing to packed halls in the Uk who had never received a penny in royalties.
From the legal point of view, 6.5/10, but good to see somebody going out and explaining versioning
This is important and interesting stuff. Thanks for the background on Jamaica. I knew the studio owners got theirs ahead of the musicians. Yeah, the copyright system is disfunctional. Yeah, no one cares about borrowed, re-licked, or sampled material until there is enough money at stake. Yeah, there is an element of economic control and exploitation.
There are two things they can do: one, show that the supposed copyright owner was not actually the creator, two, they can argue that the two songs are not similar or that they got the idea from a common source as the peeps suing.
But yeah, copyright is premised on the myth of authors being independent geniuses. You should read some of James Boyle's stuff. He was speaking here in NOLA a few weeks ago and I had a chance to talk to him. He was talking about how Ray Charles just lifted all this copyrightable gospel stuff and turned into soul music. It was genius, and it was borrowed (stolen?). The bog difference is that on the chitlin circuit, most people did not believe that copyright worked for them. So the woman who Ray copied, even though she did not like what he did with gospel, never sued, because borrowing is how American music, and really all music developed. Copyright has a disproportionate benefit to industries and to the few megarockstars that perpetuate the idea that genius is rewarded by copyright. It is a skewed debate about what equates to progress, and how IP rights "promote" culture.
great feedback, so glad i could spur some thought and conversation on this topic.
these points are all spot on - yes, there's a big diff between music/song creators and copyright holders; yep, the artists themselves often got the short end of the stick when it came to their product while studio owners and record producers won fame and profits...
Oatmeal - i had no idea about Ray Charles' music (tho i can hear it now that i think about it). thx for sharing this side of the story! i've heard a very similar viewpoint from some of the reggae artists i've interviewed. when i ask them how they feel about jungle music (an off-shoot of drum n bass with ragga vocal samples) many of the original singers say they're cool with it - even when they weren't asked for permission nor notified of the new song's existance. the ones who are cool with it often cite that they really like the vibe of jungle music, that it's about love and community, so they're ok with it. and they also recognize that much of dub and reggae music is based on borrowing, versioning, remixing and re-licking, so it's not a total surprise i guess...
thx all for checking out Ripley's post! she'll be stoked to see the reaction it's getting!
Yeah, I remember talking to some very good local bluegrass musicians in central Virginia who were playing a wedding. They played something which sounded like Dylan's "Maggie's Farm" and explained that he had lifted the melody and reworked the lyrics to an old (public domain?) bluegrass song. The Moody Blues lifted the piano line, melody, and arrangement with altered lyrics to a gospel song for "Go Now", a top 40 hit. There are many examples. The other side of it is that some good musicians aren't making enough money and take very personally bootlegging or concert taping. David Lindley has been pretty outspoken about this, as has Ry Cooder, who rarely performs live.
Really depends on how you frame the harm. Harm to culture, harm to a particular strain of culture, harm to a particular artist. It is not simple, and for that reason it is quite inert.
this is the infinite cycle we end up in, like snakes biting off our own tails: It's difficult to objectively determine what harm is done and whether it's balanced by a greater good, or not. and things get super distorted once money is added to the equation.
The key is to get the people at the table. Everyone is hurt by piracy I would say, but there are lots of other grey areas that have legitimate claims. besides what is really at stake is corporate middle man existance and crazy profit margins for the select and privileged few.
it's interesting to see how this works in other countires. In places like China, there's even more anarchy when it comes to this sort of stuff... Oh copyright, when will you evolve to meet modern concerns?