Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

cc-sampling - Re: [cc-sampling]: Negate-ative-land

cc-sampling AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Development of the Creative Commons Sampling license (or license option)

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: David Meme <david AT locarecords.com>
  • To: mark / negativland <markhosler AT bellsouth.net>
  • Cc: cc-sampling AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [cc-sampling]: Negate-ative-land
  • Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 22:45:54 +0100


I wonder what you think 'art' is. You seem to have a very well developed sense of the romantic artist, both in yourself and the band (if indeed they agree with your sentiments). I personally thought that what was interesting and radical about collage, sampling and mashing was the possibility of challenging these nineteenth century myths by self-consciously reusing other people's work (death of the author and all that). Building on others in a public way that we in the 20th and 21st century increasingly seem to have forgotten as we still imagine artists and musicians sitting in garrets having nervous breakdowns to be the somehow 'authentic' artists. Indeed linked to the question of copyright, which is *still* largely justified and legitimated by a claim to an 'author' who needs protection - when actually it is a huge faceless multinational corporation.

I agree with your comment that CC is a safe world, although for different reasons. I actually think that the CC somehow, rather like your argument below, *justifies* the very strong IP protections that corporations are so hasty to enact and yet have so little evidence to support. CC in effect privatises the commons, individualises and fragments it into a thousand little pieces which perhaps can never be put back together again. The commons (note not necessarily the 'creative commons') as a project is extremely valuable and I think politically and socially important in an age where using DRM protection we could have the nightmarish world where even certain words are technologically protected - if you don't believe me check out David Bollier's blog where he talks about coke cola threatening to sue him for using lower case! Type microsoft into word and see it autocorrect you in the correct IP protected trademark format.

The commons is important - but not for romantic artists to start making claims about muses, inspiration and breakdowns for them to create 'original' art ex nihilo. Rather it is important as artists have *always* drawn from the past, their peers, their cultural environment without having to worry about some huge multinational or hot-shot IP lawyer sending them a cease or desist letter. Artists and musicians create from a cultural sphere that is slowly being privatised and locked-down and the alternative seems to be copyright and patent pools that only the 'signed' employee artists will have access to. In effect proletarianising artists and musicians at a time when suddenly everyone is talking about creative economies, information societies and the creative industries.

Sorry to go for so long, but I think we have to be careful about what we are all doing this for. I personally would hope that we seek to challenge the crazy out-of-control extension and colonisation across all of our everyday lives of intellectual property laws, and most importantly to make sure that when the corporations start playing with language and making private property equal to intellectual property *rights* they are not allowed to continue unchallenged. Claims to a romantic author drawn 'like moths to a flame' are playing into their hands and the legal justifications they espouse. Realising that a shared cultural commons, libre culture, is an important, indeed crucial part of our lives and needs us to create culture that we share and share-alike.

David

http://www.locarecords.com

---








On 20 Apr 2005, at 20:35, mark / negativland wrote:

At 7:40 PM +0100 4/20/05, David Meme wrote:
This strikes me as a weird attitude. You are saying that if it were legal to copy and reuse stuff you wouldn't want to.


I wasn't so black and white. I said "it's less interesting".



Rather than looking for interesting sounds from all over you seem to be making the odd point that you'll only do it if it causes a fuss - which seems somewhat cynical to me.


Cynical?? No, we're unrealistic idealists! :) I'd say you sound more like a "realist". And I said nothing whatsoever about intentionally making a fuss, so be careful not to add things into what I actually said.

Do you make art yourself?? I am guessing no. If you do, you might understand my comments a bit better. My comments were not so much bout being logical or politically effective in making change ( all good things, and why we agreed to work with CC to create the sampling licence). I am merely expressing the feelings that can lurk behind the choices artists make. It's all about what inspires you to create!

Perhaps you think Negativland are activists first and artists second?? If so, you have it all backwards! :) While the activist aspect of our work is very important and clear to us (check out NO BUSINESS, our new IP related CD/book project that comes out in late May), none of us are about to move to DC! Our first and foremost concern is in making good smart art. So, for me, I am not inspired to create anything I would like by taking things from NIN, for example!

Do I want to make a "mash-up" of David Bowie's music because he mounts a big add campaign telling me to? No. ( yet I can still see the bigger picture value in having a mainstream artist like Bowie promoting the idea of letting folks re-use his stuff). And while we have on occasion used stuff from public places like the Prelinger Archive, again, it becomes less interesting to use because its so widely accessible. We are trying to have a unique voice in how we appropriate, so, quite often, the more obscure the better. Does this make sense?

Our "U2" single, the very thing that ultimately led to us being involved with CC in the first place, would never be made today because, in 2005, any out takes of a celebrity guy like Casey Kasem would be all over the web as mp3s. Back in 1991, this was not the case, and hardly anyone had those tapes. So we were inspired to use them.

While, from an aesthetic angle, the U2 single was it was it was because we liked how it sounded, we *also* did all the stuff we did on that single *precisely* because they all seemed like things we were not supposed to do. So it was both things. Art, pranks, shit-stirring, activism. Pretty much in that order. It was FUN to do it that way! We were inspired! And we thought it made for some very funny and very smart art. An real all-around spiffy package, if I say so myself.

There will always be a small percentage of artists who are dangerously drawn like moths to a flame to do work like that. And, historically, it is what moves art forward. In retrospect, I can see that that role is essential for a healthy culture, both aesthetically and politically. But it also means that once everyone is doing it, and it becomes safe and easy ( the world CC is trying to create) , it is automatically not so exciting or inspiring any more. Does that seem to be a bit juvenile of an attitude to have?? Perhaps it is, but I don't really think so- if I ain't inspired, I simply ain't makin' it. So I gotta be inspired! Following rules and joining clubs doesn't inspire me too much. That's just the kind of person I am, and I'd say all the past and present members of Negativland are cut from the same cloth.









Additionally, we might as well just have full-on copyright and close down any reuse if we extrapolate your argument.


Yes, but lets not be so binary, okay? My argument is what it is, and I wasn't askin' ya to go extrapolatin' it! :)


That way *all* samples would be interesting to you.


Hell, yes!!! :) That's been how we have been making music for 25 years!! Hee hee!! :)

I'm sorry if I misunderstood, but I think this statement of intent is a kind of pseudo-anti-establishment fight against the system that needs that very system in order to have meaning in your art. In other words, you negate any possibility of radicalism in what you are doing.



I can't actually follow what you say in this last paragraph. I don't see how we negate anything. Please explain.


Negate-ative-landly yours,

Mark




David





On 20 Apr 2005, at 18:55, mark / negativland wrote:

FYI- in a kind of reply to some earlier posts here, as a long time collage artist, I can tell you that any media or art out there that has a CC license attached to it is automatically less interesting for us to work with! :) It's an aesthetic thing. With a few notable exceptions ( our "U2" being the biggest one), we are more drawn to things that are quite obscure and harder to find, so that our "found sounds" are more unique to us and our work. Anything that is officially up for grabs, like with a CC license, is also up for grabs to *anybody* out there. So, this makes it less unique, and thus, artistically, less desirable to work with. And so, while of course we support this "re-use" attitude ( and strongly espouse it in our own work as well), it makes the found things less appealing. For example, I'd never want to do anything in a million years with any NIN stuff. *Especially* if he made it available for all to use! While we get sampled all the time ( and of course don't mind if folks do it), it seems like a rather imaginative way to go- appropriating from folks who appropriate! Kinda boring, if you ask me!

We get asked all the time to make our raw samples available to people to use themselves, but ( and some of you might be surprised by this) we have no interest in doing this. Go and find your own cool samples, ding dang it! Jeez.... :) :) ;)


Mark


--

© © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © ©

The truly creative people I know all live lousy lives, never have time to see you, don't take care of themselves properly, have weird tastes in men/women and behave badly. They don't wash and they eat disgusting stuff, they are mentally unstable and are absolutely brilliant.
- Toke Nygaard


© © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © ©

"Radical shifts happen, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of the non-conforming few."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.


© © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © ©

A young girl aged six asked her mom to tell her what she did at the university where she went every day. "I am in the art department. I teach people to draw and paint," replied her mother. Astonished, the girl asked, "You mean they forget?"






Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page