quoted 6 lines Comte de Lautremont said or wrote (at least, I'm told he did):>Comte de Lautremont said or wrote (at least, I'm told he did):
> "Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an author's
>phrase,
> makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea and replaces it with
>the right
> idea."
The author A. A. Attanasio once said to me, in regard to sampling artistic
ideas, "It is the one mud of all sculpting", a statement with which I very
much agree. The idea that artists are these little islands of talent
scrabbling for ideas and grandiosity at at least dull, and at most absurd
and backward, IMHO. Absolutely, progress involves composting the past.
quoted 5 lines An example that comes to mind is an>> An example that comes to mind is an
>> incident involving Mark Gage. He says someone slowed down one of his
>> songs, changed the name, and proceeded to release it on a compilation
>> cd. That is hardly flattery or musical evolution. And unless your
>> material is properly protected this kind of thing can happen.
Oh goody, I think I'll play devil's advocate today.
I'll grant that this is an incredibly stupid and irritating thing to do,
but does it really set Mark back at all? And this is even the extreme
case. DJ's spin Mark's stuff all the time; and does he get a cut? Does
the DJ announce "Ahem, this is Vapourspace now playing -- go out and buy
his records"?
If I unwittingly buy a CD and realize that the artist is a "ripoff artist"
... well, that's a bad bit of luck and I won't let it happen again. But if
the masses grant fame and appreciation to the ripoff artist, then this is a
matter of marketing and mass stupidity, not music.
Like it or not, there is more to the music industry than music, let alone
musical evolution. By all means, you can charge after people and sue them
over every little sample ... I think it's a big waste of time. I'd rather
put the effort into promoting myself better or something. After all, if
someone rips off one of my songs and gets rich and famous with it, then the
brute fact is that they have better PR than me.
--Seofon