Gary, you said you don't believe in a black and white world where one type of use is "right" and another type is "wrong".

Unfortunately the word "stealing" is very black, and that's how the courts see it. Most judges don't know shit about music and couldn't tell the difference between Ice Ice Baby and two seconds of an unindentifiable Chuck Mangione lick utterly changed by the new context. To the company lawyers it's all stealing, and that's why we have such bad, un-nuanced precedents in the law books.

Just because the legal issue has been decided--in favor of the folks with cash, what a surprise--doesn't mean it's been decided morally. Our viewpoints are opposed on the issue of sampling, and I try to look at it not as a collage artist but as a maker of "whole works" who frankly wouldn't mind seeing or hearing a snippet here or there in another context. It's all a matter of degree and intent, but that's not how the courts see it, thanks to the Turtles, U2, et al.
- tom moody 9-13-2005 4:23 am





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