Copyright Laws Research Paper

Copyright laws were established in the Constitution to "promote science and the useful arts" (Copyright). In the age of digital formats for music, copyright law makes it illegal for bootleggers to commit audio piracy by copying works of music without paying the artist. However, the invention of digital sampling, which allows a musical artist to take sound from a previously recorded work and incorporate it into a new work, has challenged the existing copyright laws. The search for balance between the need to protect artists from audio piracy and the goal of fostering the ability of new artists to draw on previous media has made a good deal of legal controversy within the music business. Laws and court decisions have not established what balance
Actually one specific breakbeat. You have probably have heard this drum beat many times before it has been used in hip-hop to modern day corporate America commercials. This breakbeat called the Amen has quite a history. This breakbeat dates back over forty years ago. The name Amen gets it title from a record that was released in 1969 called "Amen Brother" the B-side to "Color Him Father" that was recorded by a Funk and Soul band called the Winstons. The single "Color Him Father" went on to win a Grammy and becoming one of the top one hundred hits of 1969.This is the one song that the band is best know for, but it is the B-side that has that classic drum break in the middle of the song that makes it perfect for sampling. So 'Amen Brother' was recorded, it was released, it was played, it came, and went. There was nothing terribly remarkable about it but the drum loop was recycled with the birth of sampler in the 80s. Some of the first examples of the Amen break being used were a group called 3rd Base with their song 'Words of Wisdom' in 1989. Also in that year the group called N.W.A. released the single 'Straight out of Compton'. A year later it was used by an artist named Mantronix in his title track 'The King of the Beats'. At around the same time a new culture was forming. This culture was the Drum and Bass/ Jungle culture that centers its
Sample based music in America, and the UK blew up in the 90s. Were the Winston's around to witness all of this? Maybe the copyright holder, and founding member of the Winston's, Richard Spencer didn't care. Perhaps he, like many people during the 80s, didn't see sample based music as having any potential beyond an underground appeal. There seemed to be some kind of glory years back in the 80s when sampling and the rate it was being used as a new technique grew faster then the rate that any kind of copyright laws could be passed. Older bits of sampling were used, perhaps under the assumption of them being able to be freely used in a spirit to pledge to new forms. In other words sampling wasn't seen as simply rehashing new sounds but an attempt to make something new from something old. An artistic strategy as time honored as artistic expression in