Copyright Criminals

Directed by Benjamin Franzen and Kembrew McLeod

(IndiePix)

Video Review by Adam McKibbin

Samples have become so ingrained in music that it’s surely difficult for some listeners to imagine them as a one-time revolution.  And many likely don’t pause to consider the origins of some of the sounds piping through their speakers – from artists like drummer Clyde Stubblefield, an unwitting cornerstone of hip-hop and the so-called most sampled man in music. 

Documentarians Benjamin Franzen and Kembrew McLeod teach some welcome history in Copyright Criminals, talking to some key artists and considering the questions that have risen up around the art of sampling – like whether it’s an “art” in the first place, or simply an overused and possibly even criminal crutch.  The filmmakers are clearly sympathetic to the cause – their supplemental material notes that even Stravinsky “sampled” from Pergolesi – but their film, which aired as part of the Independent Lens series on PBS, makes a valiant effort to present the other side of the coin, including key interviews with Stubblefield and the ever-outspoken producer Steve Albini, who argues that sampling is an inherently lazy artistic move and that “you think that people doing it should be embarrassed for behaving this way.”

Franzen and McLeod cite Stubblefield as the heart of their piece – and that’s right on.  When I was in college in Madison, Stubblefield played a regular show on campus and it was well-known that he was an important figure and had played with James Brown, but hardly any of the kids knew about how he’d directly impacted contemporary music, as his breaks had become a heartbeat for everyone from Public Enemy to Melissa Etheridge.  He hasn’t gotten a dime for any of those samples, and has seldom received even a word of thanks – it’s the latter that seems to gnaw at him more than the former (though it’s never fashionable for musicians to admit that they’d like some cash). 

The questions that this raises are interesting and complex enough to fuel an even longer exploration; the biggest knock on Copyright Criminals is that it winds up feeling a little slight.  Sampling arose out of DJ culture, providing access to instruments that artists may have otherwise been unable to attain.  Some artists were using samples as a springboard into highly interpretive work, rendering the original source material almost unrecognizable.  Other artists – like the mighty Biz Markie – were using samples as a means of parody.  As DJ Shadow points out, a similar phenomenon is well-established in the art world:  artists repurposing and recontextualizing.

When samples were a tool of obscure DJs and street artists, no one batted an eye, but when they started powering albums that sold in big numbers, the legal vultures started circling overhead.  Defining albums like 3 Feet High and Rising and Paul’s Boutique wouldn’t have been possible in the post-legislation era without legal teams and a “whole bunch of bullshit,” as Mix Master Mike puts it.

While hopefully no one wants to live in an over-legislated artistic world where Danger Mouse goes to jail, Copyright Criminals raises some questions that its subjects don’t fully answer.  The defense of unregulated samples often rests on the sampling artist doing something of artistic value with the sample – the repurposing and recontextualizing that DJ Shadow mentions, or even the cheap laughs provided by Biz Markie.  But what if there’s no artistic statement being made?  What if it’s a song whose primary selling point is a great guitar riff, only it’s a recycled guitar riff from an obscure psych-rocker from the 70s?  Who gets the credit?  Who gets the money?   For every George Clinton – who enjoyed a career renaissance after being a go-to sample source for numerous hip-hop artists – there’s a Clyde Stubblefield, who “plays” on some of the era’s great tracks, yet receives neither payment nor praise.