Was it just two weeks ago that I discussed darknets? Time really does fly when you’re having fun. I was reminded of that column as I read Scott McLemee’s discussion about the out-of-control litigation surrounding music sampling. Like McLemee, when I heard about the Ohio Players court case cited in the article’s lead, my first reaction was “They’re still together?”
Later in the article, McLemee notes that it usually the case that the person who owns the copyright isn’t a person — which doesn’t actually answer the Ohio Players question — it’s a corporation, generally the label. And thanks to copyright laws that increasingly favor the copyright holder — badly skewing the purpose of copyright protection — the age-old creative process is being threatened.
Okay, not really. Creativity being what it is (creative) means that artists will always find a way around roadblocks.