This newspaper article commends Disney for not continuing in the direction of Steamboat Willie, but instead “fleshing out” individual characters., giving them “soul” and “color.” The author cites Three Little Pigs as a major turning point for Disney, especially in that it was the first Disney film to have a real plot. The relation of each pig to his house and its construction differentiates and enriches each character. The article includes a quote from Chuck Jones on the subject of Three Little Pigs which comments on character differentiation, saying that in the past, different characters looked different, but in this film, similar-looking characters were differentiated using elements other than visuals alone. The quote also clearly states Jones’ belief that Three Little Pigs was a turning point.

The article mentions music, color, and style as contributing to the success of the film, and states that these factors and the short’s popularity led Disney to another plane. His animated work was, as a direct result of this film, treated seriously, as art, and this can possibly be seen as the beginning of the “Disney empire.” The production of subsequent films, shorts and features, served to codify the Disney style, epitomized by the first Disney feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

This article provides a primary source: animator Chuck Jones states that Three Little Pigs was a turning point. Also helpful is the discussion of why the short was so important, with a focus on characterization and plot. An interesting view expressed here but not elsewhere is that not only did Three Little Pigs serve as an internal bridge from experimental to feature-length fairy tale, but it also launched Disney’s fame externally in the eyes of critics and film journals, and in this way contributed to Disney’s future dominance.

This is the original Three Little Pigs Silly Symphony; its duration is 8:23. It features the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf, as well as the famous song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" According to a few sources, the heavily Jewish image and accent of the Wolf knocking on the brick house's door was removed for the DVD release, but it seems that this revised voice was applied to the YouTube video, even though the visual was not adjusted.

Having easy, unlimited access to the film which is the subject of my research is essential, not only for being able to form a thesis but for being able to interpret and synthesize the various resources I'll find on the subject. I can draw direct evidence as to the narrative structure, characterization, and use of color, music, and sound, and hear the song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" whenever I please.

Erin McCarley “Love, Save The Empty”

This book is an enormous print compilation of Disney sketches and animated stills accompanied by text discussing early animation, its principles and appeal, the procedure of putting animation on the screen, character development, animating expressions and dialogue, acting, and other aspects of the technical and nitty-gritty details of how animation works. On page 292, in the Music and Sound section, it devotes an entire page to an example of how composed music and sound effects were synched with the animation. The example is from Three Little Pigs, and includes a sketch of the pig who built with straw running towards his home to take refuge from the wolf.

Beside the sketch are two strips, or "exposure sheets," which show how the pig's movements and actions change with time using little thumbnail sketches along paper with divisions representing time on screen. The main accents of the scene, such as going through the door, slamming the door, opening the door, pulling in the Welcome mat, and closing the door once more are shown along the strips, placed according to which frame contains the action. Where each measure of music falls is notated along the strips as well, and the swelling or dropping off of the line of action through the frames must resonate with the music synched with the film. This is a perfect example of the meticulous detail and effort put in by Disney animators that imparted quality to the resulting films and gave the studio a competitive edge.

The document is a primary source, and a perfect example of the care and extra work put in by Disney employees that is discussed in other sources. It gets into the detail of exactly how the amazing feats Disney studios was able to achieve were performed, and Three Little Pigs is a great example of the effective use of synchronized sound. This illustration, and the accompanying discussion, helps me prove that sound effects and music were part of what made Three Little Pigs so astounding. In addition, this book is almost a bible, filled with details of the animating process which would help me gather background information to discuss other aspects of my argument such as illustration and other animation methods which helped in characterization, as well as color and photography methods.

This is a listing of music related to the Song of Songs that was composed in medieval or early modern Europe and is currently available on CDs.

These Are the Vistas

45+ years and still going strong

Sherman, Cary. "Music on the Internet: A New World is Waiting." Winter 2001. The Brookings Review. 5 April 2009. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/20080959>.

 

    "Music on the Internet: A New World is Waiting" by Cary Sherman discusses the way that the internet and the recording industry are interacting and how they are being changed by each other. Sherman acknowledges that illegal distribution of audio files on the internet is a "real threat" to the industry but also states that the sites lead consumers to believe that the music was free, just as everything else is on the internet. Therefore, while the consumers are the ones participating in the piracy, there is a possibility that they are not aware that their actions are illegal. In order to combat the possibility that people just do not know that they are pirating the music, the courts and the industry have pursued litigation to make it known that licenses are required in order to use copyrighted material on the internet.
    What we can learn from this article by Sherman is that consumers will not pay for something when they can get the same thing for free. Thus, when music is still available for free on the internet, it is difficult to conceive that piracy will be completely eliminated. Additionally, Sherman states that "litigation is not a business strategy" and the best method of combatting piracy would be to come up with a suitable and desirable alternative. Thus, as has been seen in recent years, the proliferation of subscription models and peer-to-peer distribution have allowed consumers more options to access their music. However, although today peer-to-peer file sharing and subscription services may be the best option for downloading and/or purchasing music, this is likely to change quite soon and quite radically as new technologies are developed and new indexes are available for use. As the recording industry continues to evolve alongside technology, we must look out for change on the horizon and keep in mind that adapting to new technologies and industries will allow us to gain the most from our evolving industries.

Griscom, Richard. "Distant Music: Delivering Audio over the Internet." March 2003. Music Library Association. 5 April 2009. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/901040>.

 

    Richard Griscom's article "Distant Music: Delivering Audio over the Internet" discusses how the internet and personal computer have revolutionized the libraries and their abilities to catalogue and store audio materials. Digital music libraries consist of three departments that Griscom describes: infrastructure, collections and staffing. Within infrastructure there is streaming technology, equipment and archiving abilities to take into account. In collections, librarians must consider copyright law, the organization of the materials and how users will access them. Finally, staffing the coding of audio materials and making them digital is both costly and time consuming.
    However, what Griscom questions is whether or not some of these new technologies and the new digital resources made available in libraries is making a student's life too simple. The author also states that the line between preservation and access have become blurred as a result of using the same programs for preservation of materials as are now used to grant access to the recordings. While the development of these preservation and distribution services for academic audio content currently grant users easy access to materials that would otherwise be difficult to acquire, Griscom fears that despite the developments that have been made in digital audio, the formatting of said content will become obsolete and everything will have to be reformatted. However, in the meantime, the digital music libraries benefit students and academics and hopefully in the future will be available to the public.
    Access to digital audio via libraries will be important in the coming years with regards to education and how academic and rare materials are processed and distributed to users. However, if rare and academic digital audio is recorded, what will happen to music that is currently being released? Is there room in the libraries for modern and contemporary music that is currently being released?

Jones, Steve. "Music and the Internet." April 2000. Popular Music. Cambridge Univeristy Press. 5 April 2009.  < http://www.jstor.org/stable/853669>.

 

  "Music and the Internet" by Steve Jones discusses how the advancements made in media, specifically the Internet and the recording industry, have altered the way that consumers interact with the product. Jones states that digital music consumption is one of the greatest concerns plaguing the industry at the moment. Additionally, Jones wonders, with so much music available to choose from, how does one decide what to listen to? However, Jones' main point in "Music and the Internet" is the idea of media convergence and how different separate media (i.e. computer and telecommunications technology and the recording industry) are combining forces. Computer technologies are now used to create music and even will use computers to combine new and old music to create something different entirely, take for example the Remix culture and artists such as Girltalk. The overlap between these industries, Jones argues, calls for further study of how music production, consumption and distribution are all interconnected and will only become more so in the future.
    Finally, the author questions the division between us and them. As scholars (we) further study media convergence and how technologies and the recording industry are developing, we must also consider that when studying the audience, consumers, listeners (them), we are also a part of them. The us - them division is not so finite when we, the "scholars" as those analyzing the media and media consumers, are also avid media consumers as well and are inherently tied to the "them." Jones' point here is interesting, is it possible to objectively study this subject when we, ourselves, are part of the group being studied? Additionally, the movement of music is also a key area of study that Jones mentions. The movement of music currently is an interesting area of study because music is now often not held in a physical manner but rather the transfer and copying of music can be simply done with the click of a mouse. However, with issues such as piracy and copyright infringement becoming more and more prevalent in today's music industry, the format of music both makes things easier and more accessible but also more easily infringed upon.

Fitz-Gerald, Jane. "New media effect brings about major changes." Music Business International 7.3 (02 June 1997): 26. EBSCO MegaFILE. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 8 Apr. 2009 .

 

In "New media effect brings about major changes," by Jane Fitz-Gerald was written in 1997 and discusses how the Taiwanese music market was developing and adapting to changes in the recording industry. It is interesting to read this article looking back at the recording industry over ten years ago and examine how things were changing then and how they were expected to change in the future. Fitz-Gerald states, in the article, that Taiwan is a good example of the Asian music market in transition, but also states that the rate of change is so rapid that it is difficult for them to predict the market. With the government deregulation of cable channels in 1995, the number of cable television channels increased to over 100, which allowed many channels airing music programming to be broadcast. This opened up many new opportunities for artists to reach the public and also opportunities for the public to discover new music.
    Finally, Fitz-Gerald states that the domestic (Taiwanese) repertoire market share fell form 70% to 60%, indicating an increase in international music. Thus, with the increase of technological development and most likely also with the increase of the availability of the Internet, the music industry was increasingly globalized for both users and labels. In 1995, the pirate sales totaled $30.4 million, which was the equivalent to 13% of the total market. However, it is likely, that if we were to look at today’s figures the percentage of the market that consists of pirated sales would be significantly higher. On the whole, what is interesting about this article is the indication that, although the market was developing much too fast to be accurately predicted, as it is today, all of the indicators pointed to a more global and more technologically developed industry.

BBC News. "Why MP3 piracy is much bigger than Napster." BBC.com 13 February 2001. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1168087.stm>. 

Written in February of 2001, "Why MP3 piracy is much bigger than Napster" discusses the likelihood of shutting down Napster completely following the February 9, 2001 decision that Napster filesharing does infringe copyright. However, shutting down Napster will have little to no effect on how much music is traded and stored via the internet. Additionally, while the courts stated that the Napster service was infringing  copyright the courts decided not to grant the injunction that would shut down the service entirely. The problem with attempting to shut down the entire server is that, while Napster is what allows users to download the music from the internet, Napster itself is simply an index that locates all of the music. The files are, in fact, stored on each of the individual users' computers. Therefore, when downloading a file, a user is not actually downloading from Napster but rather from another user via Napster. Thus, as the article suggests, shutting down Napster would simply force users to use another sort of search engine or index, many of which the article lists as being alternative indexes that could perform the same tasks as Napster. Therefore, the article argues that for Napster to be truly and completely shut down, the courts would have to remove all of the infringing files from the 50 million user computers connected to Napster.
    Thus, what we can see from this article is that despite blatant copyright infringement, the courts are unwilling to issue the injunction because it seems as it if would be a bit of a wild goose chase. If the courts were to issue the injunction to shut down the service, the users would inevitably find another way to share files. Thus, as the recording industry and the way that users consume evolve, improving technology also allows users more and more freedom to in their consumption. They are no longer confined to purchases from the record stores and thus, it becomes increasingly difficult for the courts to regulate and control content when the owners of said content are so widespread and unreachable. As the article stated, in order to truly shut down Napster (and other servers of this kind), the courts would have to go into the personal computers of 50 million people and delete all of the infringing content being shared. On the whole, this seem to be unfeasible and should Napster be shut down, it would only follow that other servers and indexes would pop up shortly following.

Byrne, David. "David Byrne's Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists--and Megastars." Wired. 18 December 2007. <http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_byrne>.

David Byrne's article "Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists - and Megastars" published in December of 2007 discusses the way that the interaction between artists and the labels have changed over time. Byrne argues that the recording industry today is not actually a business about music but a business about business and sales. He states, "at some point it became the business of selling CDs in plastic cases..." The article discusses the progression of the commodification of music and the proliferation of different possible models for distribution of music. Byrne, a former member of The Talking Heads, lists his six possible models for music distribution: equity, standard distribution, license, profit-sharing, manufacturing and distribution, and self-distribution. These range from least artist control over product (equity) to self-distribution, which allows the artist complete control over the product. On the whole, the author advises artists to hold onto the publishing rights to their music as much possible.
    This article is relevant to music and new media now because along with the advent of new technology, artists have many more options and avenues to reach consumers. Byrne argues that the traditional label structure is too large and only represent the economic aspect of the industry and no longer foster the artistic interests of the musicians. Servers such as Myspace and new digital technology are transforming the recording industry into something entirely different and are allowing artists more freedom in how they manufacture and market their music as well as how it is released to the consumers. Just as the music industry has changed much over the past century, it is only bound to change more in the future as more digital technologies develop and become available to consumers and the industry.

Dubner, Stephen J. "What's the Future of the Music Industry? A Freakonomics Quorum." Freakonomics Blog, New York Times. 20 September 2007. <http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/whats-the-future-of-the-music-industry-a-freakonomics-quorum/>

This 2007 New York Times blog compiles the opinions of five different experts on the music industry. They are asked to reflect on the "future" of music in the context of the digital revolution. One expert is the author of the previously-referenced "Effects of File-Sharing on Record Sales," three are major music executives, and another is the founder of Engadget and a free, online-only music label. Essentially, they all offer disparate perspectives regarding the way in whcih music consumption is changing.

In a paper meant to argue a particular position about the success of new online music distribution methods, any novice or statistical opinion must be tempered by that of the experts. This New York Times column is a unique and valuable compilation of 5 different expert opinions. Largely, everyone seems to agree that the music industry is undergoing substantial change and that the labels must be open to reinvention. One suggestion undrestood by the labels in 2007, it seems, are advertising-supported models. Most interestingly, in their opinions these experts define exactly why the internet has changed the demand for music so thoroughly: it has affected scarcity. This is a crucial basis of understanding for any marketing or revenue model that follows.

ComScore. “Press Release: For Radiohead Fans, Does “Free” + “Download” = “Freeload”?” 5 November 2007.

This press release details a study of the online sales of Radiohead's "In Rainbows," an album the band released via a pay-what-you-want download model. The statistics obtained demonstrate clearly the presence of a "freeloader market," in which 60-62% of people will download an album for free when confronted with a pay-what-you-want option. The article offers a few different perspectives. Some experts are impressed that 40% of consumers are willing to pay "real money" for something they could get for free. Others question whether this model could be viable for less-established artists. Edward Hunter, a comScore analyst, states that this unique effort is important in that it eliminated a loss of profits due to illegal downloading.

Though these statistics are important, they are more interesting when confronted with data from (countless) other sources, which report that Radiohead's experiment was a likely success. Many different sources report that the profits made by Radiohead on In Rainbows were comparable to what they would have made under normal record-company distribution. Though those opinions and statistics can be found readily, the data regarding freeloaders is more unique to this article, which seems to expose the downside of pay-what-you-want models.

Anderson, Nate. "Free Nine Inch Nails album tops 2008 Amazon MP3 Sales Charts." Ars Technica. 6 January 2009.

This article summarizes experiemental distribution of Nine Inch Nails's new album and the effects the new online distribution model had on sales. Nine Inch Nails released the album Ghosts I-IV under a Creative Commons license, which allows legal free sharing and remixing. Despite this, the album garnered huge profits; both via digital download on Amazon.com, and perhaps more significantly in limited edition "extras" sets. The Ars Techinca article goes on to pose two questions to Fred Beneson of Creative Commons: Why would fans buy the album when it could be had for free, and would Creative Commons Lisencing work for record labels? Bereson addresses these questions speculatively, with optimism as well as some analysis of the factors necessary for the success achieved by NIN.

This is a major success story for Creative Commons, and an example of a profit-making model that still offers free download and distribution of music. The profits of Ghosts I-IV speak to the appeal for a product that is not available for free download (extras, convenience, or the authenticity of supporting an artist directly). Understanding the presence of this demand is necessary for understanding the way people want to consume music in the digital age. Profits can be achieved via different music products and services.

Barboza, David. "Google and Music Labels bet on Downloads in China." The New York Times. 5 April 2009.

This article addresses one of the most recent experiments in new profit models based on digital music: Google's free music search engine in China. Very recently, several of the biggest international record labels partnered with Google and a Chinese company (top100.com) to offer a free music-download service. Because online piracy of music is particularly rampant in China, the success of this model could have lasting implications on policies in the US. The New York Times article offers both critical and supportive opinions on the initiative. Notably, Google will have to struggle to contain the music-downloading to China, employing "legal and technical hurdles."

The partnership of Google with major international music labels represents a new way for record companies to remain profitable without trying to stop free music downloads. This unlimited-download service is supported not through subscription, but by advertisements. Although it is difficult to anticipate the success of such a model, the adoption of this idea certainly reflects a major change in the way that the entertainment industry is approaching its consumers. The willingness of labels (even on this controlled scale) to abandon control over music distribution to this degree is a symptom of their desperation, certainly. However, it is likely also a necessary move towards a new kind of support for music development.

Accenture Media and Entertainment. "The Challenge of Change: Perspectives on the future for Content Providers." Accenture Global Content Study 2008. Accenture: 2008.

This report is the result of a market research firm initiative, in which they surveyed 100 entertainment executives to determine their opinions on the future of revenue models based on digital media. The results of the survey show that the ad-based model is the most popular model for the surveyed executives, as opposed to subscription or iTunes-like services. Though the focus in the report seems to be on forms of entertainment other than music media, it provides a successful context for profit-garnering models in digital entertainment. It also reflects the point of view of those that will ultimately be responsible for shaping the way that media is transferred to the consumer (legally) online.

This report represents yet another perspective on successful provision of internet content (without greater legislation). The importance of advertising on maintaining free content on the internet cannot be understated -- many argue that advertising-based models represent the future of music revenue. Ad-based music models are already being put into place: the music-search engine developed by Google in China, for example. The Accenture report is important, therefore, because it provides data and quotes from industry experts that address the longstanding relationship between advertising and entertainment.

Anderson, Chris. “The Long Tail.” Wired Magazine Issue 12.10. October 2004. < http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html>

Chris Anderson’s article “The Long Tail” (later expanded into a book) introduces the idea of the growing importance of the Long Tail in the way that media is marketed on the internet. It posits that the internet has allowed for a new profitability of the non-“hit” 80% of entertainment product (books, music, DVDs). Ultimately, he argues that the incorporation of the Long Tail into business and marketing models has been advantageous for the entertainment industry, the consumer, and for “culture” as a whole.

The concept of the rising profitability of the Long Tail is a major one in any argument regarding new music marketing on the internet. The Long Tail model is a fundamental example of the way that online consumption of media has changed (and, it is argued, improved) the music industry as a whole. Since 2004, when Anderson first coined his Long Tail idea, we have seen the effects of Amazon, Netflix, and iTunes’s feedback mechanisms for identifying taste and suggesting a focus on less-popular items. Clearly, the exploitation of the Long Tail by these distributors proves the profitability of internet-specific marketing models. Further, I believe that the growth of the Long Tail model has been a taste-making mechanism in the generations that have embraced these internet vendors—not only has the use of the Long Tail shaped marketing initiatives, but it has changed the way the consumer defines their own taste.

International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). “IFPI Digital Music Report 2009.” January 2009. <http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/DMR2009.pdf>

This report is a production of the IFPI, a worldwide group for the representation of the recording industry. It offers extremely recent data from 2008 which remarks on the success of different world-wide profit-garnering music revenue models; for example, it reports how much of the international market share iTunes currently holds. It also disucsses the way in which the music industry has already changed in its revenue and marketing structure, and gives statistical evidence regarding the results. The report, dated January 2009, details the way the record industry has seen itself change, and the ways it is looking to maintain its authority.

Clearly, this report is not from an unbiased source like the independently-researched “The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales.” However, the data is still relevant, and more recent than academic publications. This industry-side discussion demonstrates a contrast to the anti-industry marketing and revenue models that are to be addressed elsewhere. Essentially, it gives an opposing perspective and interesting statistics regarding the effects of file-sharing on international music markests. Finally, it provides some key insights into the ways that the record industry is urgently seeking to maintain control, the ways that intellectual property is viewed by international corporations, and the ways in which they measure success.

Oberholzer-Gee, Felx; Strumpf, Koleman. “The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis.” The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 115, No. 1 (Feb., 2007), pp. 1-42. < www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdf>

This journal article is a statistical, quantitative analysis of the effects of file sharing on record sales in the United States. It provides a necessary statistical context against which new music initiatives can be explained in terms of new revenue and marketing model development as a result of the digital-music renaissance. It provides data up to 2007 that measures record-sales (online and in stores) as well as expert estimates of file-sharing usage. Additionally, its authors conclude that file-sharing is not primarily responsible for a decline in record sales, a conclusion that has been used in several policy cases regarding the legality of file-sharing.

This article serves several key purposes. First, it provides an empirical background to support the necessary claim that the music industry is changing as a result of online sharing and the proliferation of digital media. Second, its analysis undermines certain assumptions many RIAA proponents maintain regarding the effect of file-sharing on record sales; for example, it is argued that the availability of the “single” online contributes more to the change in revenue structure than P2P networks. Third, it reports digital-music statistics that are important in any argument regarding the business of music on the internet.

Carles. "Animal Collective is a Band Created By/For/On the Internet." Hipster Runoff. 13 January 2009. <http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2009/01/animal-collective-is-a-band-created-byforon-the-internet.html>

In this blog post, satirical/ironic blogger "Carles" produces one of the most-discussed theses on Internet music of 2009. He posits that the band Animal Collective's most recent release, Merriweather Post Pavillion, was successful specifically because it catered to the tastes of it's internet-savvy audience. In doing so, Animal Collective has thereby defined what it means to be an "internet band": how to walk the fine line between mainstream and authentic taste; how to produce internet hype without immediate backlash; how to produce revenue despite a full-album leak. Hipster Runoff also references the importance of online-criticism mediums like Pitchfork and meme-production in determining the success and respectability of a band. Ultimately, he concludes that the success of Animal Collective is not only the result of but also a reflection upon the band's internet following: a "symbiotic relationship" uniquely achieved.

This Hipster Runoff post is important in the way that it was reflected on throughout the blogging community; it was taken with unusual sincerity, and both praised and criticized. The story of Animal Collective's new rise to prominence (Merriweather Post Pavillion is their fifth album) tells the story of the new internet marketing machine. This CD epitomizes a particular kind of marketing and revenue model on the internet. The Hipster Runoff post takes this a step further, as it analyzes how and why the internet-branding of Animal Collective was successful, and the way the branding of Animal Collective simultaneously contributes to a branding of self. Animal Collective and the Hipster Runoff analysis is an example of the way that online music critics, independent bloggers, and their music-savvy audience are responding to a particular kind of online music marketing.

This is an ethnography of "mod" music producers online. The author argues that mod music producers are musicians and composers because

"it involves a much closer contact with musical sound than conventional composition because every aspect of each sonic event must be coded: from pitch and duration to exact volume, panning, and the laying in of numerous effects (such as echo, tremolo, and fades)." These mod sites feature original compositions and remixes, and are locii of various communities and subcultures in which active participation is necessary to gain social status (so listening is as important as producing). The aesthetics are rigorous, "...based on a kind of geek adolescent techno-machismo—music coding is damn hard and not suited for the technologically handicapped."

Remixing and sampling are popularly practiced in Lysloff's community. "Ripping," or sampling bits from other tracks is more popular, and generally encouraged as a form of sharing and community engagement, becoming "public property." Giving credit is considered good practice, as some producers do consider sampling theft. Plagiarism, Lysloff acknowleges, has become an issue as the community has matured. The meanings of remixes is different: "remixing is considered a form of homage to a particularly outstanding piece of music or tribute to a renowned artist."

Gopal, Ram D., Sudip Bhattacharjee, and G. Lawrence Sanders. "Do Artists Benefit from Online Music Sharing?." Journal of Business 79.3 (May 2006): 1503-1533. Business Source Premier. EBSCO. University of Pennsylvania Van Pelt Library, Philadelphia, PA. 8 Apr. 2009

The Sanders and Gopal article "Do Artists Benefit from Online Music Sharing?" discusses the economic implications of the internet and music file sharing on the recording industry. As the authors describe, it has become increasingsly simple for users to search and download files from the internet. While proponents of online music state that file sharing expands the market and helps new artists to become known. Additionally, they argue that by downloading music users will often sample the music and then purchase the entire album. On the other hand, however, opponents state that file sharing hurts sales because instead of buying the music, users are just downloading it for free. The challenge, Sanders and Gopal state, is to make it easier and more convenient for users to purchase the music than it is for them to steal the music. The other facet of the issue that the authors debate is the accessability and cost of music sampling. The authors argue that lower sampling costs erodes the phenomenon of superstardom and that more inexpensive and more convenient sampling methods will persuade users to purchase their music rather than downloading files illegally.

This article is relevant to my paper topic because it demonstrates how usage of the internet has influenced both the recording industry and how people consume music. While much of the statistics and math in this article are a little beyond what the average reader can understand. However, the point that the authors are making is quite relevant, especially with regards to the new varied pricing that iTunes has instituted in the last week. As piracy has become so easily accessible to the majority of the public, it is difficult to see how the future of online file sharing will play out and how this will affect the recording industry. What we must consider as these issues are further debated is that if the artists who are creating the music are not compensated, they will no longer make music for the consumers to enjoy. Therefore, perhaps, as the authors suggest, more convenient sampling prices will persuade the consumers to purchase their music rather than download illegally and, perhaps, through some restructuring of the market, we can save the struggling economy of the recording industry.

Sandoval, Greg. "What's the real cost of free music?" CNET 23 Mar 2009 1-3. 5 Apr 2009. <http://news.cnet.com/whats-the-real-cost-of-free-music/?part=rss>.

 

Greg Sandoval's article "What's the real cost of free music?" published on cnet.com discusses the death of free online music provider SprialFrog in March of 2009. Sandoval states that it was obvious that the service would not survive despite the good concept. Sandoval notes the prevalence of failure in the ad supported music service sector and the threat of going under lurking around every corner, as seen by the death of other services such as Rhapsody prior to SpiralFrog's demise. Although none of these ad supported music sites have yet to record any sort of profit, they have required quite a bit of funding to start and support. Additionally, Sandoval argues, the advertising market of today is "crumbling" and has not provided sufficient support for these sites to survive.
While radio is still a very prevalent source of music discovery, Sandoval notes that ad supported sites must pay a lot to license the music and make it free to users. While the intention of these sites is to boost and support sales, Sandoval notes that the sites are, in fact, replacing sales. Thus, as the record labels are losing sales to these free music sites, the industry is requesting that the sites increase their licensing fees to cover the costs of the lost sales. Finally, Sandoval argues that ad supported sites must adjust their model to encompass social networking sites, which are capable of amplifying the word of mouth necessary to spread the buzz about music and various ad-supported sites.
This article is relevant to my paper topic because the author discusses how changes in the landscape of new media and the recording industry and restructuring themselves according to consumer needs. Sandoval takes the failure of SpiralFrog and demonstrates how the structure of the ad supported music site is not an adequate model to produce any sort of profit. In the future of the music industry, ad supported sites will most likely not produce enough revenue to support the artists and executives of the record label but could, if linked, as Sandoval suggests, with social networking sites, provide the best possible model for advertising and popularizing new music.

McClure, Steve. "Freston Sees New Media Aiding Music Biz." Billboard 111.27 (03 July 1999): 57. EBSCO MegaFILE. EBSCO. University of Pennsylvania Van Pelt Library, Philadelphia, PA. 7 Apr. 2009 <https://proxy.library.upenn.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=keh&AN=1973296&site

 

Steve McClure's article "Freston Sees New Media Aiding Music Biz," published in Billboard in July of 1999, recounts the statements of Tom Freston, then the CEO and Chairman of MTV Networks. Freston stated that the music industry had nothing to fear from the proliferation of the Internet. Using the example of video and radio, playing on The Buggles 1979 song "Video Killed the Radio Star," Freston states that video never really killed the radio star, but rather radio altered itself and exanded to fit the new industry organization. Freston hypothesizes that new media, such as the internet, will only help to expand the music industry rather than rendering older, more traditional, media obselete.
Finally, McClure notes Freston's conception of the four ways that the Internet will affect the music business: more convenience, sense of community, more choice, and more creativity.

It is important to consider, when reading this article, that it was written in July of 1999. Therefore, as the Internet was becoming more widely available and open to new possibilities as well as the general public, the music industry was anticipating vast changes to operations. While Freston was not always correct in his predictions of how the Internet would influence the music business, what is perhaps most important here is the way that Freston argues for the adaptation rather than death of media. While The Buggles said that video killed the radio star, radio adapted for fit the new format, just as radio and video have adapted to the internet via the proliferation of sites such as Pandora, YouTube, Vimeo, Hulu, etc. Just as the Internet revolutionized the music business at the turn of the century, the internet will continue to do so in the future with new media and altered forms of traditional media.

"This is a community music remixing site featuring remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons licenses. You are free to download and sample from music on this site and share the results with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Some songs might have certain restrictions, depending on their specific licenses. Each submission is marked clearly with the license that applies to it."

Start at 1:05, end at 1:20

The author, writing in 1945, offers a lengthy critique of why musical "re-creations" do not qualify as art.  The article begins by stating that the addition of images to "absolute" music qualifies as a form of corruption and that Disney is guilty of this crime in Fantasia.  The author goes on to list other offenses against canonical musical pieces: betraying the original intention of the composer, disrupting the continuity of the original piece, changing the original instrumentation (including changes to volume), and the introduction of expressiveness.  The author uses metaphors of paintings and other visual art forms in order to demonstrate the horrific effects of each of these sins against music.  The article closes with the statement that this practice of musical re-creation is merely a passing fad that will surely die out with the "current period of hyperindividualism."

This article is significant because it presents the common opinion of those in the music world that Fantasia is a heretical misuse of classical music, but it puts forth a more methodical reasoning behind this type of disapproval.  The highly structured argument is significant because it shows that there existed an organized explanation of why films like Fantasia should not be considered valuable pieces of art.  The author classifies this kind of impressionistic reworking of classical music as a passing trend, a fact that relates to my thesis by providing a direct temporal dimension to definitions of art.  It seems that this author refuses to accept Fantasia as art partly because it represents what the author sees as a current (at that time) practice.  The style of the film did not have the historical precedence behind it to be considered art.  This article is especially interesting in terms of comparisons to more recent analyses of the film because it marks as criminal the very thing that Disney is praised for by contemporary cultural critics: the re-editing of classical music pieces in order to make them accessible to a wider audience.  Whereas modern critics see this democratization of high art as a positive, artistic aspect of Fantasia, this author gives a methodical explanation of why this is a crime against music.

Balet, Leo. "The Nuisance of Music "Re-Creations"" The Kenyon Review summer 7 (1945): 382-98. JSTOR. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 27 Nov. 2008 .

The author of this article argues that Disney's editing/reworking of canonical classical music pieces in Fantasia vignettes does not merely butcher these artistic compositions (as was the common outraged response from people in the field of music), but instead brings to them a new series of visual associations that make them accessible to "middlebrow" audiences.  He claims that it was the film's "technical virtuosity" that legitimized these decisions as art.  The article discusses the ideological rhetoric underlying the film, such as evolution and technological progress, and how the harmony between image and sound onscreen works to naturalize these ideological underpinnings.  The author also includes a discussion of the "Centaurettes" in one sequence that embody the racist trope of the "picaninny," characters that were self-censored out of the film in later releases, and how their presence signifies a certain racist ideology that reinforces the social hierarchy of the time.  Briefly tracing the appearance of Fantasia over time, the author also mentions Fantasia 2000 as a continuation of this musical democracy that highlights the "cutting edge" technology legacy of the film through its IMAX format.

This article provides a rare instance in which a cultural critic from the field of music actually praises Fantasia for its reworking of classical music.  However, it is significant that this positive reaction comes more than six decades after the film's initial release.  Looking back on the film as a moment in history, the modern critic is able to locate Fantasia within a particular socio-historic context.  This vantage point enables the author to comment on the sociological effects of the film, effects that comprise much of this article's redemption of the film's unorthodox usage of classical music.  The author marks Fantasia as art because of both its technical brilliance and the creativity it displays in the methods used to ideologically affect its audience.  This retrospective appreciation of the film relates to my thesis in that it provides an example of the notion that hindsight leads to Fantasia's validation as art rather than commodity.  It is also significant that this article appears after the release of the contemporary Fantasia 2000, which served to refocus attention on the film in contemporary times.  This re-emergence of the film, marketed as the resurrection of a classic, may have had a direct influence on the likelihood of a reviewer to see the original as art because of its connection to a particular moment in American history.

Clague, Mark. "Playing in 'Toon: Walt Disney's "Fantasia" (1940) and the Imagineering of Classical Music." American Music spring 22 (2004): 91-109. JSTOR. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 24 Nov. 2008. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3592969?seq=9&Search=yes&term=fantasia&term=disney&term=2000&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dfantasia%2B2000%2Bdisney;gw%3Djtx;prq%3Dfantasia%2B2000;Search%3DSearch;hp%3D25;wc%3Don&item=1&ttl=68&returnArticleService=showArticle&resultsServiceName=doBasicResultsFromArticle

Copland, Aaron. "The Aims of Music for Film." New York Times 10 Mar. 1940: 158. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
ProQuest. Van Pelt Library Philadelphia, PA. 2 Dec. 2008.

Copland introduces film music as an important part of film composition. He does not agree that “background music” losses its function when the viewer becomes aware of it, giving the example that watching a film before the musical score is added is nothing short of unbearable. The problem with music, however, is that audiences have not yet been informed on the subject. Copland believes that advertising a film as having the music of a famous composer could attract a huge audience of musical fans—2,000,000 concertgoers/year—just as directors and stars attract another audience to specific movies. This tactic might truly increase the number of people who attend films, as they would attract a more intellectual population than the traditional moviegoer. However, he explains that most films are worthy of their mundane music, but about 10% of Hollywood films, “the cream of the cinematic crop,” would profit greatly with better music. Copland asserts that the score is designed to strengthen and underline the emotional content of the entire picture supplying a sort of human warmth to the black-and-white, two-dimensional figures on the screen.

“Fantasia,” unfortunately, does not fall into Copland’s “cream of the cinematic crop.” Perhaps the film’s musical criticism originates from the Disney Company’s sense of entitlement regarding selected music. Unlike any other film at the time, producers of “Fantasia” took the liberty of using works from big-name composers of classical music while adding to them their own personal, random interpretations. Animators may be skilled in creating cartoons, but having no musical background or education, it comes as no surprise that some critics say “Fantasia” butchered the music it employed. Furthermore, Disney does not use the music to enhance the picture, but rather uses animation to enhance the music. This assumes that the music needs enhancing thus further insulting the world-renowned composers. “Fantasia,” though perhaps a good source of entertainment, ultimately shows Disney’s arrogance, despite its musical disability, through the artistically improper connections between image and music.

Clague, Mark. “Playing in ‘Toon: Walt Disney’s ‘Fantasia’ (1940) and the Imagineering of Classical Music.” American Music 22.1 (2004): 91-109. University of Illinois. JSTOR. Van Pelt Library Philadelphia, PA. 26 Nov 2008.

Clague opens with “Fantasia’s” style. A “new kind of art,” “Fantasia” creates meaning out of music and images through audiovisual alignment. Such meaning should expose the public, presumably having no musical knowledge, to a wider understanding of classical music. Disney achieved this goal with “Fantasia” by creating a series of shorts, each of which was associated with a particular piece of classical music (such as Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor of the opening vignette). With the help of Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Disney attempts to teach viewers how to listen to such music. The animation acts as a visual aid to suggest information about listening to the music. More specifically, “Fantasia” is an early example of Disney’s “Imagineering,” exemplifying the combination of science and creativity, engineering and imagination. Certain critics suggest that such a composition may have damaged the music; inevitably, image always dominates sound. However, the Disney Studio used that implication to its advantage in “Fantasia” by introducing a number of associations, ideas, and references to the music. Appealing to middlebrow culture and an uneducated middle-class, “Fantasia” provided easy access to the high-end classical music. Abstractions of sound were connected with imagery of commonplace experiences to allow the public to better relate to the pieces. Themes expressed by the film are faith in scientific research and progress; Darwin’s theory on evolution in The Rite of Spring segment; racism (though more obvious passages were self-censored in the 60’s and do not appear on the modern editions of the film), mainly in depictions of black picaninnies; sexism; homophobia and gluttony (Bacchus, who is over weight, and the donkey kissing); as well as family, parenting, love, youth, etc. Though many of these ideologies are rejected by today’s society, Americans in the 1940’s more readily embraced them. In effect, “Fantasia” reflects the ideological viewpoints of its time, serving today as an important reminder of where America has been and what is aspired to be.

Clague exemplifies, in this article, Disney’s goal to make “Fantasia” an educative production. The film therefore has a clear message in mind and does not leave much room for personalized interpretation. More harmful still are the commonplace associations with the music. Such banalities associate the corresponding music to lack of musical innovation and of individuality. This visual imposition therefore truly taints the musical pieces of great composers whose work has been subject to Disney’s distortions. The Disney Studio effectively changes the nature of the music by limiting the listener’s creativity. As such, “Fantasia” is the opposite of art because it introduces only one correct idea and expresses as true, perhaps resembling propaganda. Though there is the unresolved debate of propaganda’s artistic nature, “Fantasia” is not even propagandistic art because it was not created as such. “Fantasia,” an entertaining animated film and not a political advertisement, confines the viewer to one clear interpretation, rather than implying a message through abstraction. This film is therefore fundamentally not a work of art. It is simply the middleclass entertainment that it depicts.

This segment addresses the aesthetics in the last number of “Fantasia” which combines Modest Moussorgsky’s bone chilling tone poem “Night on Bald Mountain” with Franz Schubert’s pacifying Ave Maria. Disney’s goal here was to visually shock the audience with the audio bridging of these two drastically different pieces. This would ultimately address the conflict between good and evil. Vladimir Tytla successfully conveyed the demonic aspect of Moussorgsky’s music with impressive animation amplified by special effects and camerawork. Furthermore, Moussorsky’s music was used to its full potential because the Disney Studio was able to increase the tone of a descending passage—low notes however loud they may be played decrease tone in a classical live stage setting. The transition to “Ave Maria” occurs with the sounding of a bell forcing the demons to retreat as dawn approaches and a series of pilgrims are depicted. “Ave Maria” serves an emotional relief to the audience, undoubtedly tense from the shock of Moussorsgky’s malignant music and its grim visualization. Though Disney was unsatisfied with his animator’s production of this scene, he finally realized his vision only days before the premiere; in Disney’s eyes it was finally perfect. The use of Fantasound in the scene was one of the most important technical components that aided the scenes effects. Fantasound made it seem as though “the spirits of the pilgrim choristers were in procession up the side aisles of the theater.” Disney, Stokowski, and their coworkers had created an entire animated concert while taking full advantage of the animation medium.

Moussorgsky’s piece was written to accompany a story so its style is unusual. Disney's images of demons from the underworld are uncommon as well, since Walt did not want to portray traditional horror motifs. Combining the two creates a harsh sensation while it increases the tension and discomfort of the viewer. However, the following “Ave Maria” sequence erases any fear created by "A Night on Bald Mountain" primarily through its music but also through its animation. Disney and his staff used the sound-image relationship here but they extended that concept by creating a relationship between two sound and image combinations. It is interesting to note that the music alone, the animation without sound or the separation of the two parts would have created something ordinarily unimpressive. The genius behind this last scene is the perfect synchronization of sound and image and the astute bridging of the two pieces. Musical senses are amplified by animation, and furthermore the coupling of two extremes heightens reactionary emotions. This well-constructed scene is perhaps the best example of “Fantasia” working as a form of art. Though the interpretation of the music is depicted directly, and not implicitly, the meaning of the combination of pieces is only suggested. Disney finally required interaction from the viewer perhaps hinting at "Fantasia's" artistic value or, at least, its artistic potential.

This article, appearing in a 1941 issue of The Musical Times, is a review of the original release of Fantasia.  The author presents a somewhat biting critique of the film for failing to meet the standards put forth by the classical music pieces it features.  The main criticism voiced here is that the film's visual "Disney style" is so overbearing that the character of the music is overshadowed.  While  the author acknowledges the creative and effective pairing of visuals with music in a few of the film's sequences, the article maintains that Fantasia still does not constitute an innovative work of art.  The author argues that the film is merely a second-rate extension of the "Silly Syphonies" series of animated shorts.  The article closes with the repitition of its orginial criticism: Fantasia takes on too much in terms of the music at the heart of its presentation.

This article represents the prototypical response from the music community at the time of Fantasia's orginal release.  This critic conveys ambivalence at best, describing some redeeming qualities of the film but still condeming it as a failure in both the beginning and end of the article.  This relates to my thesis in that it provides an example of negative criticism at the time of the film's release.  The author is not able to view the film through a historical lens, so the only perspectives offered are those that relate to the aesthetics and intertextuality of the film.  In this case the reviewer is predominantly concerned with the face value of how Fantasia treats classical music, and in his eyes it fails to meet its potential in this respect.

McN. "Disney's 'Fantasia'" The Musical Times sep. 82 (1941): 349-49. JSTOR. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 29 Nov. 2008 <http://http://www.jstor.org/stable/922891?&search=yes&term=fantasia&term=disney&list=hide&searchuri=%2faction%2fdoadvancedsearch%3fq0%3dfantasia;f0%3dall;c0%3dand;q1%3ddisney;f1%3dall;c1%3dand;q2%3d;f2%3dall;c2%3dand;q3%3d;f3%3dall;wc%3don;search%3dsearch>.

This is the original Three Little Pigs Silly Symphony; its duration is 8:23. It features the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf, as well as the famous song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" According to a few sources, the heavily Jewish image and accent of the Wolf knocking on the brick house's door was removed for the DVD release, but it seems that this revised voice was applied to the YouTube video, even though the visual was not adjusted.

Having easy, unlimited access to the film which is the subject of my research is essential, not only for being able to form a thesis but for being able to interpret and synthesize the various resources I'll find on the subject. I can draw direct evidence as to the narrative structure, characterization, and use of color, music, and sound, and hear the song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" whenever I please.

This book is an enormous print compilation of Disney sketches and animated stills accompanied by text discussing early animation, its principles and appeal, the procedure of putting animation on the screen, character development, animating expressions and dialogue, acting, and other aspects of the technical and nitty-gritty details of how animation works. On page 292, in the Music and Sound section, it devotes an entire page to an example of how composed music and sound effects were synched with the animation. The example is from Three Little Pigs, and includes a sketch of the pig who built with straw running towards his home to take refuge from the wolf.

Beside the sketch are two strips, or "exposure sheets," which show how the pig's movements and actions change with time using little thumbnail sketches along paper with divisions representing time on screen. The main accents of the scene, such as going through the door, slamming the door, opening the door, pulling in the Welcome mat, and closing the door once more are shown along the strips, placed according to which frame contains the action. Where each measure of music falls is notated along the strips as well, and the swelling or dropping off of the line of action through the frames must resonate with the music synched with the film. This is a perfect example of the meticulous detail and effort put in by Disney animators that imparted quality to the resulting films and gave the studio a competitive edge.

The document is a primary source, and a perfect example of the care and extra work put in by Disney employees that is discussed in other sources. It gets into the detail of exactly how the amazing feats Disney studios was able to achieve were performed, and Three Little Pigs is a great example of the effective use of synchronized sound. This illustration, and the accompanying discussion, helps me prove that sound effects and music were part of what made Three Little Pigs so astounding. In addition, this book is almost a bible, filled with details of the animating process which would help me gather background information to discuss other aspects of my argument such as illustration and other animation methods which helped in characterization, as well as color and photography methods.

From 1929 to 1939, Walt Disney produced a series of 76 short animated films. "Three Little Pigs," which was released in 1933, marked the first example of the technical innovation and experimentation whose culmination would make possible Disney's future work, and the beginning of an era of feature films with recognizable characteristics for which Disney would become known. "Three Little Pigs" pioneered in the areas of narrative, character development, color, and music and sound integration; Disney set high goals for itself and achieved them in this short film.

Downes, Olin. "'Fantasia' Discussed from a Musical Standpoint--Sound Reproduction Called." New York Times 14 Nov. 1940: 28. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. ProQuest. Van Pelt Library Philadelphia, PA. 2 Dec. 2008. <http://proxy.library.upenn.edu:2082/>.

Downes’ article is a review of the film in the context of the interpretation of music. He describes that Fantasia proves that wonderful things can be done with the combination of image and music. However, Fantasia is an example of what not to do with such a medium. Downes criticizes the films very purpose. He explains that many musical authorities say that such pieces cannot be related in any other language but there own. Listeners should be free to imagine only what they can fathom and not preconceived, set interpretations. He asserts that nothing positive comes out of “scrambling” different art forms together. He argues that, had the animation been based on musically knowledgeable sources, the film could have been an outstanding creation. He acknowledges several moments in which the film does not harm the music, but for the most part, he disagrees with Fantasia’s depictions. He is utterly repulsed by the sequence of Beethoven’s Pastoral that renders the film worse than “footless.” Though Disney cut and modified the musical pieces to fit the animation, Downes notes that fortunately the music has survived, but such inappropriate representations should not encompass such acclaimed musicians.

From a musical standpoint, “Fantasia” is a monstrosity. Borrowing from already-established music, “Fantasia” attempts to invent a form of expression that it cannot sustain. Conceptually, Disney was on the right track with “Fantasia,” but it is impossible to nationally portray false interpretations of such acclaimed musical pieces without being reprimanded by musical authorities. Rightfully so, Downes and many others were “utterly repulsed” by scenes in the film. Instead of creating art within its medium and conventions, “Fantasia” tries to invent a new kind of art that combines abstract music and images. We can appreciate Disney’s attempt here, but still the studio cannot blend abstract music with childish animation (like with Beethoven’s Pastoral) and get away with it. “Fantasia” is more of a crime against art than a form of art

    Brophy identifies the Disney Company as important, first and foremost, for its inventions, devices, and processes that have defined and refined animation as we know it. Disney constructs cinematic totality with the interaction between image and sound. Regarding Disney productions, Brophy defines musical composition as an organic life force and image as an artificial life force. Disney’s fusion of the two leads them to distil each other, to effect a symbiotic relationship emphasizing synchronization. The sound cartoon world, he explains, is one where every mark and squiggle is energized by rhythm, vibrating in reaction to the soundtrack. Brophy suggests that “Fantasia” honors the organic life of music to which the trickery of animated imagery could only aspire. An example of the symbiotic relationship between sound and image, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” shows how the orchestra conductor directs music while experiencing it. The experience and the direction determine each other. The real versus the dream-like are evoked in Mickey’s dream sequence. The passage demonstrates that music’s relationship with time is always relative. One’s reaction depends on what precedes and follows the sound. “A World is Born” is a commentary on the whole illusion of life which we infer from the preceding voice-over narration that delivers a literal content. Stravinsky’s score expresses a violence of rhythm, which Brophy links to barbaric behavior and reproductive and procreative activity (the juxtaposition of orchestral bursts and erupting volcanoes represents the phallic thrust of creation). Disney’s animated shorts and features manipulate sound-image relationship to mobilize narrative construction and our place within the text.

    Music’s relationship with time explains the conductor metaphor that he can control a piece’s direction during his performance, but can never fundamentally alter it. The conductor thus never redefines music in any other temporal context but his own. The conductor, symbolizing the producer in the context of film, is given the opportunity to place the audience within his “text” to create a specific perceived narrative of sound within one sole context. The Nutcracker Suite in “Fantasia” is proof that associations and interpretations are all relative. In this sequence music is depicted by fantasy and nature. Coincidentally, it never alludes to the theme of Christmas for which the soundtrack was originally composed. The film therefore illustrates the myriad possibilities in musical direction while inferring that interpretation is contingent only on time. Brophy’s theory on the relationship between image, sound, and time proves Disney’s artistic intentions to simply sway the audience in a certain direction. Unfortunately, the animation, like that of the erupting volcanoes for example leaves no room for individualized creativity because it so clearly defines the action. Though the synchronization of music and this particular animation does not intrinsically harm the musical pieces, it does devalue them as art in the temporal medium of “Fantasia.” By falsely directing such musical manipulation, “Fantasia” significantly decreases its own artistic value.

Harmetz, Aljean. The Making of The Wizard of Oz. New York: Knopf, 1977.

The third chapter of Aljean Harmetz' The Making of the Wizard of Oz, entitled "The Brains, The Heart, The Nerve, and The Music," discusses the way in which E. Y. Harburg (the lyricist) and Harold Arlen (the composer) worked together to develop the soundtrack for The Wizard of Oz. Harburg, who was hand picked by Arlen, had previously recorded "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?," which became the "battle hymn of the Depression" (Harmetz, 76). When confronted with the challenge of composing a ballad for The Wizard of Oz, Harburg maintained his desire to reflect reality through music and created "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" to showcase the possibility of exploring new places. Harburg attached deep emotion to this song and hoped audiences would realize his message. Technically, the rainbow offers Dorothy "a visual reason for going to a new land and a reason for changing to color" (Harmetz, 77). However, Harburg also intended the song to represent an opportunity to flee the black and white Kansas farm and enter a new city full of vibrant color. After the first screening of The Wizard of Oz, L.B. Mayer, the head of MGM, removed "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" from the film. Harburg was angry not only because that meant losing a beautiful ballad, but also because it meant eliminating a dramatic political statement. After much deliberation, however, the song was put back into the film and has since become one of the most easily recognizable songs in history.

Harmetz' discussion of Harburg as a lyricist can be analyzed further in light of Harburg's past accomplishments and the political and economic landscape in the Untied States in 1939. Harburg's "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" is an overt representation of the economic crisis that overtook America in the 1930s. It is therefore probable that included in Harburg's intentions for "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was the goal of representing Dorothy's entrance into a new land, full of color, as America's emergence into a new era of economic prosperity. In this light, it is probable that Kansas represents the Depression-era and the Land of Oz correlates with Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. When FDR became president in 1933, he instituted the New Deal strategy in an attempt to restore America's reputation as a land of affluence. His efforts helped farmers across the Midwest reestablish themselves as successful workers and, ultimately, recreate their old lifestyles. The New Deal offered America the chance to reinvent itself and become vibrant country, full of Technicolor. Dorothy's desire to escape the dullness and squalor of Kansas and experience a new, exotic locale reflects Harburg's hope that America would once again be the land of opportunity where the streets are paved with gold.

 

This newspaper article commends Disney for not continuing in the direction of Steamboat Willie, but instead “fleshing out” individual characters., giving them “soul” and “color.” The author cites Three Little Pigs as a major turning point for Disney, especially in that it was the first Disney film to have a real plot. The relation of each pig to his house and its construction differentiates and enriches each character. The article includes a quote from Chuck Jones on the subject of Three Little Pigs which comments on character differentiation, saying that in the past, different characters looked different, but in this film, similar-looking characters were differentiated using elements other than visuals alone. The quote also clearly states Jones’ belief that Three Little Pigs was a turning point.

The article mentions music, color, and style as contributing to the success of the film, and states that these factors and the short’s popularity led Disney to another plane. His animated work was, as a direct result of this film, treated seriously, as art, and this can possibly be seen as the beginning of the “Disney empire.” The production of subsequent films, shorts and features, served to codify the Disney style, epitomized by the first Disney feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

This article provides a primary source: animator Chuck Jones states that Three Little Pigs was a turning point. Also helpful is the discussion of why the short was so important, with a focus on characterization and plot. An interesting view expressed here but not elsewhere is that not only did Three Little Pigs serve as an internal bridge from experimental to feature-length fairy tale, but it also launched Disney’s fame externally in the eyes of critics and film journals, and in this way contributed to Disney’s future dominance.

A relevant topic that has interested me is the way the RIAA has transformed the function of copyright law in the modern world in regards to the music industry and file sharing. Copyright law is supposed to encourage the flow of information, but the RIAA has been trying and succeeding in restricting this flow of information in their dealings with file-sharing offenders. They have instilled a certain fear in people so that they will never share files again, becoming a monopolizing faction in copyright law. They have the money and the legal backing to bully and intimidate the people they sue into settling out of court, even though most of the time they lack sufficient evidence and the practice of obtaining that evidence is of questionable legality. Recently however, people have started to stand up against the RIAA. Since the RIAA sues hundreds of people a day and therefore are still settling with ninety-nine of them, they seem to the public to not be making a difference. This is untrue however, because those that stand up to the RIAA are quietly taking them down bit by bit. The unconstitutional practices of the RIAA have since decreased due to the public outcry they have received, counterarguments won by the defendants such as legal fees have increased because the defendants press the RIAA about their lack of evidence, and more cases are being brought to court as public awareness increases. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize the RIAA has been taking advantage of people when one finds out that the RIAA has sued a dead person, a thirteen year old girl, and a divorced woman without a computer.

 

This is an article explaining the tactics used by the RIAA in obtaining information and evidence on illegal file-sharing, from information given by an RIAA worker himself. The RIAA hires a third party company, MediaSentry, to track down illegal file-sharers. That company then runs different peer-to-peer file-sharing programs and searches for songs specifically owned by the RIAA. They are then able to track down the specific IP address and the ISP from which the songs they find came from. They do not actually download the song however, using a digital handshake instead to let them know that the song is available for download. This complicates the matter because it is hard for me to believe that the RIAA can use a so called "digital handshake" as their main evidence when no actual download occurred. The fact that the file was in a shared folder and was ready to download does not mean the person themselves shared the file. The court case Atlantic v. Howell is a great example of this situation in which the court rule that "If the owner of the shared folder simply provides a member of the public with access to the work and the means to make an unauthorized copy, the owner is not liable as a primary infringer of the distribution right, but rather is potentially liable as a secondary infringer of the reproduction right." Also in that case the judge stated, "Unless a copy of the work changes hands in one of the designated ways, a "distribution" under ... 106(3) has not taken place," thereby negating the RIAA's claim. However, not all cases are even taken to court, and the RIAA is able to slip by with this lack of evidence by presenting it like it is their primary proof of infringement.

The article then goes on to talk about cases of a more serious nature and how the RIAA deals with it. They start off with the digital handshake but then MediaSentry personnel actually do download the songs in question. This to me seems backwards and wrong that the RIAA downloads the same songs, in the same manner, from the same programs, as the pirates they are trying to catch.

Capitol v. Foster is a major victory for those being bullied by the RIAA. It is a sign of hope that people can make cases against the RIAA and win, even though they seem very outmatched. This source is useful because of the ruling that rejected yet another theory used by the RIAA to control and transform copyright law. The theory that was rejected due to the ruling of the case was that Foster was not found liable for the file-sharing that occurred on her computer by others and over the internet access that she paid for. The judge ruled in this way because Mrs. Foster was ignorant of the fact that any file-sharing programs were on her computer, and that any file-sharing occurred. Her husband and daughter could have been the ones at fault but she could not be sued for something she did not do and did not know about. This is a huge blow to the RIAA's legal campaign because it adds insult to injury. Not only can an IP provide limited information about a specific copyright infringer, but the RIAA cannot get away with suing the owner of the computer without sufficient evidence anymore. They cannot intimidate people with the specific lie that they have hard evidence on the identity of the copyright infringer because when they are brought to court their evidence will not hold up.

This case is not representative of the way RIAA lawsuits go however. Still, most people tend to settle out of court because legal fees would outmatch the settlement fee. But this case is representative of the evidence that the RIAA uses and the inconclusiveness of it. If a person does take action against the RIAA, and are truthfully not a copyright infringer, they have a very good chance at winning the case. Fortunately for Foster, she was able to have her case dropped as well as win a counterclaim argument for attorney fees which amounted to more than 60,000 dollars. Resistance to the RIAA is ever increasing and with each case lost by the RIAA they lose that much more control over the direct copyright law is going and will go in the future

This website produced by the RIAA, is supposed to educate a person about illegal file-sharing and copyright infringement. Some questions that the RIAA pose and answer are both helpful and truthful, but there are also others that the RIAA answers with lies. It is interesting to look at these questions and realize the manipulation that the RIAA uses to persuade people into settling out of court, and the blatant lies they tell those people when doing so. From these questions I am able to gage the direction and steps that the RIAA is taking in order to successfully transform the laws on file-sharing and copyright to fit their liking.

For example, they declare that a person is sued because that person in particular has been identified as uploading or downloading copyrighted material without authorization. Most of the people they sue and take action against are not extremely tech saavy and therefore might not catch the lies in the previous statement. The truth is that the RIAA cannot single out a person, only a specific IP address, which only means that the action took place at a time. Basically, all they can prove is that at a certain time, which they can not pinpoint either, a person used the computer with the specific IP address mentioned and downloaded an illegal copyrighted file. They do not have enough evidence from that alone to win a case, but because they have the money to sue massive amounts of people in this way, they manage to settle many cases in their favor and out of court. However, some people do realize what an IP address is and realize the lack of evidence the RIAA has which results in the high profile cases in the news today. That false statement by the RIAA adds to the list of ways it has directly affected the flow of information and the way copyright law works. They have been able to bully their way out of court cases with lies such as that and the excessive amounts of money they have.

 

This source is a court document from the Atlantic Records v. Tanya Andersen court case. More specifically it is the complaint from the defendant Andersen, and the part that interests me is where it talks about the questionable legality of MediaSentry's investigations. Tanya Andersen is another person who had enough courage to stand up to the RIAA, and like Ms. Santangelo, she is a single mother. However, Ms. Andersen is also disabled and has a young daughter. This is another instance that shows the type of people targeted in these lawsuits by the RIAA and why they are usually so successful in settling cases out of court. They are transforming the way copyright law works into cases that mostly do not make it to court in order to make a lot of money and pretend like their way of justice is bringing awareness to the public about copyright infringement.

The focus of this source is to show the tendency of MediaSentry's investigations to be intrusive and invasive of privacy. By doing so, this also shows that the RIAA are also cutting corners but then try put the blame on MediaSentry when caught. For example, the complaint provides detail about MediaSentry's investigations explaining that without authorization and under the false pretext of being a peer user, they are able to hack into someone's computer and gather information illegally. They then sell the person's IP address to RIAA, therefore allowing the RIAA to claim they did not do anything illegal themselves. This illegal practice has become known over the past months and as a result, some states require private investigators to have licenses and to be registered. This is true in the state that Ms. Andersen calls home and for that reason MediaSentry's investigation is illegal and so are all their findings. This evidence of illegal investigations by a well known partner of the RIAA contributes to the belief that they are trying to transform copyright law to fit what they want, whether it be through legal or illegal ways.

This paper titled “The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales” is a strong argument opposing the beliefs of the RIAA. The RIAA believe that illegal file-sharing is causing the downfall of the music industry, and that these illegal downloads are causing tremendous losses for artists in America. The reason that record sales are declining, they say, is due to the amount of illegal downloading occurring, so if they stop illegal downloading the music industry will thrive once again. However the RIAA polices file-sharing in a way that results in the person possibly never sharing music again. Their method severely restricts the flow of information, especially because there are instances in which the people they sue are not infringing upon anything yet will not share music again.

This paper maintains that file-sharing in fact helps the recording industry and that file-sharing is not the reason for the decline in record sales. Their argument makes sense to me, mostly because I have thought about it at times before as I am sure others have. They argue that people download songs to see if they like the artist they are listening to and they will be more inclined to buy the whole album if they like what they hear. People do not want to waste their money on an overpriced CD which they have never heard before. But if they download a song off the album and like what they hear, they are more inclined to buy it. If the person does not like the music, they are not going to pay for it anyways, no matter if they downloaded a song or not. People share files, and then discuss the music in chat rooms and servers which enhances the flow of information. Discussion leads to either the person buying the music or not buying the music, but either way information is being passed along. The RIAA is trying to stop this and instill fear in every file-sharer to never do it again or else they will go bankrupt due to all of the legal fees and fines they will incur. In essence they are trying to stop the flow of information as well as convince the world that there are no positive outcomes from file-sharing.

This paper provides evidence through surveys of file-sharers which points to file-sharing being beneficial towards record sales. It also brings up the idea that the reason for record sales declining is not due to file sharing, but due to the lack of popular music. Music produced during those years was not good enough in the eyes of the people to spend money on buying overpriced CDs, and the music that was popular to the people saw an increase in sales proportional to the amount of file-sharing that occurred for a particular song off the album.

 

This source is the definition of the term “ex parte.” I am going to need to cite the term in my paper because it is one of the more favorite ways of the RIAA to bully people. First they find out the IP addresses of the copyright infringer through private investigations done by MediaSentry. Since IP addresses can only identify that the infringement happened on a certain computer not the specific person that shared the files, the defendant becomes a John Doe and other measures need to be taken by the RIAA. This is where the “ex parte” order comes in to play. This “ex parte” order, if granted, allows for immediate discovery of the identity of the copyright infringer. The RIAA subpoenas the ISP (Internet Service Provider) of the IP address forcing them to give up otherwise confidential information such as names and addresses. Once the RIAA obtains that information they are able to sue the person in his own name.

“Ex parte” is the term used when one party talks to the judge without letting the other party know about it, and in the USA the courts maintain that both parties have to notify the other when talking to the courts. However, the RIAA has gained so much control over the way copyright law works that the courts normally permit such an order. Although it seems very unfair, illegal, and violates the constitutional right of fair notice, the RIAA has the power and people to make such an order almost routinely successful. The “ex parte” order is one of the most important ways the RIAA can control how copyright law works, but hopefully with the rise in cases being brought to trial this power will soon diminish.

 

This source is the decision in the Atlantic v. Howell case. This case is important in the fight to lower the power that the RIAA has over copyright law because it rejects 2 popular theories that the RIAA tries to use in their cases against file-sharers. This first theory is called “making available” theory of infringement and it holds that if a person has a folder or file which is shared and therefore is able to be downloaded, that person is infringing on copyright even though the file or contents of the folder were not necessarily downloaded. The rejection by the court of this theory is a major blow to the RIAA's strategy and weakens the power that the RIAA has over copyright law. The second theory is called “offer to distribute” theory and had been accepted in similar cases by the court. It means almost the same as the “making available” theory.

One of the most important factors of this case is that Mr. And Mrs. Howell represented themselves against the whole litigation team of the RIAA, and won. The court sided with the Howells, saying that just because MediaSentry went and downloaded a file off of the Howell computer does not mean they personally put the file in the shared folder. The Howell's argued that Kazaa shared their whole hard drive without their knowledge. The courts stated that although MediaSentry had evidence of a file being shared, there was no way it could tell who actually put it in there.

The decision favoring the Howells was a monumental victory for the little guy so to speak and provides hope that the RIAA is not unbeatable, although they try their best to seem so with their intimidation tactics and bullying.

The Sony BMG v. Tenenbaum case is arguably the most high profile file-sharing case in the news today for a number of reasons. First, the defendant, Tenenbaum, is being represented by a famous Harvard Law professor by the name of Charles Neeson. The fact that Neeson was attracted to this case speaks volumes of the potential change to be made in how copyright law runs in the modern world today. Second, this case shows to the common people the true motive of the RIAA. They are trying to make an example out of Tenenbaum, who downloaded seven songs, in order to intimidate everyone from sharing files on their computer. He is a small fish in a big pond to them, and they think that they can use the intimidation tactic of suing him for an exorbitant amount of money all the while instilling fear in those who are thinking of sharing files.

This leads to the reason why I am choosing to use this case as a source: Tenenbaum is not trying to win his case just so the RIAA can pay legal fees that incurred, rather he wants to tackle the organization's legal strategy at its core. He is trying to prove the unconstitutionality of their litigation tactics in order to severely limit their power and effectively hit them where it hurts. Someone is finally accusing them of abusing the law and constitutional rights, and has the legal team to back him as well. There is a major difference between reading court cases and reading the obvious abuse by the RIAA in them, and actually being proactive and trying to defend yourself and others. The people have had enough with the RIAA and their monopoly over copyright law in regards to file-sharing and the music industry and the measures they take to restrict the flow of information that copyright is supposed to encourage. People are not supposed to be so scared of the RIAA that they will not use the computer or send files ever again for fear of punishment. The modern world we live in is changing largely into a digital world, and the RIAA is trying to stop us from moving forward by squashing our hunger for new information with their unconstitutional strategies.

This source is a blog written by one of Prof. Neeson's students in his CyberOne class, who are also helping out Tenenbaum in his legal battle. This source also provides links to the portions of the court case documents themselves which could potentially be very helpful in my paper if I need to locate something specific in the case.

The Virgin v. Thomas case is not being used as a source in my paper for its positive outcome or because it somehow decreased the RIAA's power over copyright law. Actually, Thomas is losing her case, was hit with a 222,000 dollar judgment, and has since sought new legal advisors. What is very important about this particular case is the awareness this case has raised around Internet circles. People have websites devoted to “Freeing Jammie”, donations are being made in her name so she can pay the 222,000 dollars as well as finance an appeal, and awareness of RIAA abuse is thriving more than ever in Internet forums and chat rooms.

The amicus brief submitted by a handful of law professors strengthens the argument that more and more people are gaining knowledge and are willing to fight back against the RIAA. The amicus brief also presents new evidence and questions about copyright law, such as what is fair and what is infringement. For example, they state that the Copyright Act gives copyright owners the exclusive right “to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending.” Making a work available to the public, they believe, does not constitute distribution. They also make their case and point to reject the synonymy between the words “distribute” and “publication.” They make a convincing argument that is relevant to my topic and back it up with multiple sources.

Before reading this brief I wondered whether the exclusive right of a copyright owner under the Copyright Act actually applied to a computer file. I wondered this because the Copyright Act protects phonorecords and copies which I take to be actual tangible items. There is a gray are for me when I think about Copyright Law and a computer file because a file is not tangible. After reading this brief I feel that this exclusive right cannot apply based off of the Copyright Act, but rather a provision or amendment needs to be made which outlines if and when a computer file is protected.

 

This is a lengthy article that analyzes the RIAA litigation process from head to toe. It is a great source to cite in my paper because of the massive amount of information that it provides as well as fine details that it includes which would otherwise be very hard to find. It is presumably written and put on the Internet by Ray Beckerman, an active lawyer in the fight against the recording industry and their dubious tactics. He goes through each step in the process one by one, gives insight on it and defines terms where necessary, and cites specific cases in which that particular step was of significant importance. He also cites specific people that are fighting against the RIAA in a particular step and then moves on to the next process of RIAA litigation.

The main places that I will potentially cite from this website will come from the information provided on the processes of “ex parte” discovery as well as the analysis given regarding the RIAA's routine motions for dismissal of counterclaims. These are two major reasons for the RIAA's success in recent cases, and this article is trying to convey the fact that with proper knowledge of the way the RIAA litigation process works the RIAA can indeed be taken down. Their frequent use of “Ex parte” discovery is sickening, but if one knows that the RIAA is likely to try and use this tactic, however unconstitutional it is, adjustments can be made and abuse can be prevented.

I also find it somewhat amusing and unbelievable how much authority the RIAA thinks it has, and how much authority the people believe it has. Due to their intimidation tactics, “ex parte” orders, an expensive legal team, and often abusive and forceful pre-litigation letters, the RIAA seems to be in complete control of copyright law in the modern United States. They can do what they want and get away with it, even if most practices are of questionable legality. This source states that while the RIAA tries to dismiss counterclaims brought up by defendants as if they have the authority to do so, they actually do not. For example, they have not been able to cite any legal authority to dismiss counterclaims for legal fees.

Finally, this source provides descriptions on the types of people that the RIAA has tried to sue, further strengthening the idea that change is needed and that the RIAA is getting more and more abusive in their practices each day. Yes it is true that college students are normally who the RIAA target, but it is know that they have also tried to sue children, their guardians, a single mother who did not live at the residence the copyright infringement occurred, and last but not least a person who is actually deceased.

 

This is a great blog that includes an interview with Patricia Santangelo on Good Morning America and it gives great insight on the types of alleged copyright infringers that the RIAA has been going after. Patricia is being sued by the RIAA for something she did not do. This case is very indicative of the intimidation and blackmailing tactics that the RIAA uses against the people they sue. Ms. Santangelo however did not concede to their tactics and took them to court. They tried making her settle out of court so that her name would not be mentioned in a lawsuit, and they told her that a much more severe fine would be in store for her if she went to trial. The RIAA has almost an unlimited supply of money they use this factor to pressure those being sued. But because she did not download anything or do anything wrong, she did not give in to their pressure and did not settle with them. This case is fascinating because of who the RIAA set out to sue. The computer that was found with illegally downloaded songs was not at Ms. Santangelo's place of residence, she is divorced and the computer is located at her previous residence, and she does not have the financial means to pay the lawsuit. Also, before the case she knew nothing about illegal downloads on her computer, about Kazaa, or even what an IP address was.

It is unbelievable to me that the RIAA can amount enough gusto to try and sue this helpless person who has no idea what is going on. It is an awful attempt to make a few more dollars, and an even worse attempt at trying to promote awareness on the severity of illegal downloads. It is not right to go after a divorced mother who has very limited technological knowledge and who could not have possibly been at fault. The RIAA can not possibly be gaining any support when they sue people such as Ms. Santangelo. Luckily, Ms. Santangelo is fighting them, and in doing so she is raising awareness of the intimidation tactics the RIAA uses. Ms. Santangelo is only one person however, and for every one there are another hundred people who give in to the bullying of the RIAA.

This blog entry contains much of the same information as the other article on Russia and its music download website www.allofmp3.com. It discusses how the website was symbolically closed and the RIAA dropped it suit against the site for that reason. This allowed the United States and Russia to sign bilateral accords since technically Russia had achieved one of the requirements for strengthening its ties with the West. At the same time, a couple other similar illegal music download online stores continued to operate and were completely their existence was completely ignored by the RIAA and the bilateral negotiations.
    The blog entry does contain one piece of crucial information – the author comments on how he enjoyed his customer experience using allofmp3.com. This raises an issue that is important in my argument: the view of those who use illegal sites to download music. The blog author’s opinion hints to the fact there is no legal website of the same scope and quality as allofmp3.com. Therefore, we can’t expect eastern Europeans to abstain from illegal downloading if the illegal choice is more accessible than the legal one. Also, if the international community insists on infringing countries to crack down on illegal websites and materials, the multinational group should also offer an alternative to infringing sites. Perhaps, the RIAA could have negotiated a deal where it insured that allofmp3.com does pay the necessary licensing fees and becomes legitimate in the eyes of the western countries. It is absurd that the RIAA expects Russians to stop downloading music illegally if these listeners have no legal way to obtain music online.

    This article talks about Serbia’a surprising progress in combating piracy. The Serbian authorities have seized “280,000 illegal copies of music, films, games and software” from the domestic market. The article points out that this raid was most likely because Serbia wants to join the E.U and combating piracy is one of the criteria for closer relations between the European Union and Serbia.
    This source is closely tied to the article on Russia’s music download website. The Serbian case, however, has a more optimistic outcome. While the raid will certainly not stop piracy, it is an important step forward that shows the population that the Serbian authorities are serious about strengthening their relations with the E.U. and are therefore willing to carry out seizures of illegal materials. The article also explicitly brings up the ties between piracy and organized crime. Knowing the political and social climate of Eastern Europe, I can confidently claim that the same connection exists in Russia and is evident in the symbolic closure of allofmp3.com. When the exact terms of the ACTA are negotiated, it is important to take into consideration the domestic implications of combating intellectual property infringement. Enforcement of copyright laws can be dangerous since it interferes with powerful underground crime networks whose bosses maintain close connections to corrupt officials within Eastern European police authorities. Finally, the limitation of this article is that it does not investigate the reaction of the population and whether the seizure was successful in the long term, i.e. did the vendors stop selling illegal materials for good or did they continue after a few days.

    This article discusses the closing of www.allofmp3.com - a major Russian music download website, which was considered a significant copyright infringer by western countries. Users could buy songs from the website and the owners claimed that they paid royalties and license fees for the songs and therefore the owners argue that the site was legitimate in accordance with the law of the Russia Federation. Western music companies, however, assert that they do not receive any of these fees. This issue is important for a political reason: the presidents of Russia and the U.S. were meeting at the same time and the article speculates that Russia was trying to improve its relations with the West.
    This source is important for my research because it shows the link between piracy and international politics. Perhaps a way of dealing with countries where piracy is rampant is to tie their success enforcing intellectual property rights to the amicability of their relations with the West. The outcome of this scheme will depend on the country’s size and particular international standing and needs. As this article shows, the closing of www.allofmp3.com was merely a symbolic gesture since a nearly identical site opened up soon after but at a different address. It is also evident that there are domestic inconsistencies when it comes to applying copyright and license laws. For example, even though allofmp3 claims to have paid the necessary licensing fees, the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society says that it has not received these payments for months. This hints that piracy is not just a copyright and intellectual property issue, but that it has links to more lucrative domestic crime operations. Because of the vague wording of the ACTA, it is not clear how this agreement will affect similar situations.

Legal Outlook For Blogs--Revisited

This article was written by Urs Gasser, a research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law school.  In this article, Gasser examines the legal outlook for MP3 blogs and whether or not they are prime for litigation.  To determine this, Gasser examines the economic significance detailing blogs' relatively small size, means of musical promotion, their 'niche' clientele, and the short-term availability of the linked files as viable legal defenses for MP3 Bloggers.  Gasser also makes a Fair Use argument for both Blog uploaders and downloaders--citing that the non-comercial status of these blogs and their promotional effect don't have a negative impact on said markets.  Gasser also acknowledges the role that record labels play in the survival of blogs--by intentionally leaking teasers and unreleased tracks.  
 
This article sets up several premises of my paper.  It establishes MP3 blogs as the new gate-keepers of the music industry, citing these blogs as the effective modes of instantaneous promotion.  An important point is Gasser's mentioning that the record industry voluntarily leaks tracks to these blogs--snubbing the copyright law they have sued for in the past.  This point reaffirms my claim that record-labels themselves have taken part in legitimizing MP3 blogs as a means of new media.

 

In a 2006 Rolling Stone article, it was stated that "geeks" can now make or break bands because of their tenuous hold on the "blogosphere." While these blogs often offer MP3s for readily available download (illegal), the presence of MP3 blogs "promotes progress," with their ability to critique, comment, and endorse up-and-coming artists. Moreover, the presence of blogs has made the Major labels middlemen instead of the culture dictators they once were.

 

This academic journal is published by Cambridge University Press and is a commentary on the first source listed above.  Laing highlights the most important points of Frith’s work, offering his professional opinion in a disagreement, agreement, or clarification in the very least.  A notable quality of this journal is the fact that is it printed in Great Britain; therefore it offers the insight of a foreigner analyzing American copyright law in contrast to that of the United Kingdom.  This perspective draws attention to aspects of the law that may not been previously considered. 

            The essay is short and concise, wasting no words in a full examination of Frith’s work.  He calls into question Frith’s assertion that the copyright system is an “aspect of the competition between different music producers…and…different music users,” and claims that there is much more to it than that.  He acknowledges the complexities in the system in that they do not clearly favor or target neither the creator, nor the performer, nor the consumer.  Slightly outdated, this essay was written before any sampling lawsuits were completed in the courts (at least in Great Britain) however, this serves as a strength instead of a weakness, however, seeing as his calculated predictions can be measured against the results to gauge how scholars viewed the subject.

            This journal is not only an intellectual work in itself, but it is also an intelligent deciphering of some of Frith’s most significant assertions.  This serves the reader well as some of his reading can be confusing and seem contradictory at parts.  In reading Frith’s work, I will be sure to keep Laing’s journal on hand for color and clarification in order to most accurately comprehend the discussion and facts presented.

 

This book is an objective look at the various implications of digital sampling and copyright infringement in the music industry.  It offers numerous examples of instances in the production of music that range from simply “causing a stir” to reaching a major court decision – and it provides the results of each.  It has been written and edited by a collection of scholars, specializing in a number of fields and commenting from a variety of backgrounds and points of view. 

            The book does not necessarily pose an argument as much as it clarifies the dispute between the recording industry and the digital sampling community.  It pits the copyright laws against the “creativity” of new musicians.  The book takes neither stance but rather gives adequate attention to both.  On one hand, it states that copyright is often blamed for curtailing creativity in music, in that it prevents the production of completely new songs simply because of their use of a small sample of a previous work.  Conversely, the authors acknowledge that copyright is also seen as a catalyst for creativity, offering incentive to create fully original work instead of somehow deriving it from a pre-existing source. 

            This dichotomy is essential to my argument seeing as it offers equal views and examples on the subject of digital sampling.  The cases identified in the text are sound evidence of the evolution of the copyright law as a result of the development of the digital sampling technologies and practices.  As a result of these case studies, the book also calls to mind a number of musical examples that can not only be analyzed further, but can also be used to find other examples or to gain further insight into the specific case in question. All of these items are discussed in a case-by-case basis with commentary following and this formal structure provides an easy reference into any single instance of copyright infringement that results from the practice of digital sampling.  This source will prove invaluable in the completion of the final paper, seeing as it outlines all of the surrounding facts and intricacies of copyright law as it pertains to music.  In deciding whether or not a sampling is within the bound of copyright law, this book has been cited numerous times, and will be upon completion of the paper. 

 

This book is a guide – as its title might suggest – to all things digital when it comes to music.  It serves as not so much an analysis on copyright in the music industry as a whole, but rather as a set of legal and technical guidelines so that one may participate in the consumption and production of such music without infringing on copyrights.  In other words, it describes for the reader all of the ins-and-outs of the digital music industry so that one may know where in the law his practices may reside. 

            Hill’s book has entire chapters devoted to the assessment of what is legal, what is not, and how to go about participating in said sanctioned musical practices.  He identifies a list of acceptable file-sharing websites, and offers his own commentary on why others are forbidden, as well as why these are acceptable.  The book begins with a basic introduction into the technologies and methods used in the digital realm and then goes deeper to list available services and to comment on the merits of various practices.  His advice is clear and he condones no illegal activity, yet he makes clear why certain people might be motivated to circumvent copyright laws in terms of digital music.  He further lists specific file types and programs that are used in these practices and he identifies useful software.  He finishes the book with another broad chapter about the “Conscience of Digital Music” as a whole as well as his prediction of the future of the industry.

Hill’s technological knowledge is a key aspect of this book that has allowed me to delve deeply into the details of digital music production and sharing.  He explains these issues in simple terms, while still conveying the complexity of their implications.  In writing this final paper, the technological terms and details from this book will provide much-needed expertise in a field that I am not necessarily well-versed in.  In my analysis of the acceptability of digital sampling, I must first know how the practice works and what techniques are involved; this book offers me this knowledge, which is key to reaching a conclusion in my final paper on what sampling is acceptable within copyright law.

 

This book is at the opposite end of the spectrum, so to speak, from the previously-mentioned source.  In this book, Williamson and the other authors discuss music from an expertise on the art itself.  There is no mention of digital music, sampling, file-sharing, or other similar topics to be found anywhere in the book.  In their places are excerpts from sheet music and examples of lyrics.  They offer their expert commentary on subjects ranging from Chopin to Snoop Dogg, from Dante to the Beatles, and each is approached with the same level of intellect and scholarship.  Multiple chapters cover the creation of music from scratch – as told from the songwriter’s point of view, and it is this unique perspective that offers a new form of insight into the practice of digital sampling.

Another important factor in this work is the chapter entitled “Mimesis, Gesture, and Parody in Musical Word-Setting.”  This chapter not only explores the implications that a parody has on an original work but sets the framework for parody with an historical narrative about its origins.  At first, this seemed to be irrelevant to the topic of digital sampling and copyright law, but after further inspection, it became apparent that this knowledge is very important to the understanding of parody and its stance in copyright law. 

Words and Music discusses at length many different styles and genres of modern music, primarily “gangsta,” or hardcore, rap.  This genre is a unique example because not only is it arguably the heaviest on lyrical content out of all kinds of music, but also because it is notorious for its sampling practices and is quite possibly the realm in which the most copyright infringement cases take place.  Reading a scholarly assessment on such genres is especially helpful for this topic seeing as it provides a critical, but not condemning eye on the subject.  This is all-to-rare in today’s academic and scholarly publications, and to have a source such as this is very useful in the terms of this research paper. 

 

One look at the pages of this book and it is immediately known that it is unlike any other sources to be used for this essay.  The pages are printed with a hole in the center and the outline of a CD on each one – clearly a modern work by a modern author.  This is the argument for all of the merits of sampling and Dj-ing music for a crowd as told from the perspective of an established DJ, Paul Miller (DJ Spooky).  Despite its casual tone and appearance, however, this book is filled with intellectual commentary on the state of music and the art of remixing today. 

            Quoting anyone from Woodrow Wilson to George Clinton, Miller offers a wide range of examples to support his stance on the art of Dj-ing.  He believes that sampling music is a form of creation, putting a musical piece of work together in a different way in order to achieve what DJs refer to as “flow.”  He asserts that sampling is both the result and catalyst for new music.  “You can never play a record the same way for the same crowd,” he writes, calling the digital sample a “recycling” of sorts, a “repurposing” of an old melody or riff. 

Miller’s unique stance as a DJ himself, combined with the casual tone of this narrative offer the reader a conversation with a man deeply involved in the digital music industry.  As mentioned above, he does indeed advocate the benefits of the art, but he also recognizes the dangers of “taking sampling too far.”  Seeing the digital music industry from his eyes in this way is a welcome insight into yet another point of view on this topic.  This will only add to the complex standpoint that I will be able to take in writing this essay. 

 

Seemingly a sequel to his previous work, Sound Unbound is compiled with the help of numerous contributors and reads much more like a scholarly account than its predecessor.  It delves further into the intricate aspects of Dj-ing and remixing: sampling, appropriation, plagiarism, and various forms of musical technology from tape loops to video opera.  The list of contributors ranges from science fiction writers to media activists, from rappers to composers, and this wide range of expertise offers an even better insight into the intricacies of the music industry in the digital age that the first book provides.

Most important to the focus of this paper, however, remains to be the testimony and work of Paul Miller.  Once again, his experience as a professional DJ offers an exclusive look into the life of someone who makes a living off of sampling and remixing, however the supporting chapters from his colleagues offer a much stronger foundation for his more up-to-date commentary on the industry.  In addition, the work of novelist Jonathan Lethem on appropriation and plagiarism is a good complement to Miller’s chapters on sampling and civilization. 

Contrary to the last book by Miller, Sound Unbound explores more deeply the legal implications of “stealing” another’s song or work, and the distance that one must go in order to gain such negative attention from the authorities or at least the original creators.  Furthermore, the book includes a mix-CD compiled by Miller himself, made up of a variety of artists commonly classified as “avant-garde,” which only serves to enhance the written works that he includes in the book.  It gives the reader something real and interactive – a way to experience what all of the scholars are talking about first-hand.  It is the well-roundedness of this complete work and the many facets of the modern music industry that it covers from the inside-out that is the reason this is so helpful in the construction of my final paper.

 

Katz also examines the realm of digital sampling, but he does so with a keen detective’s eye, looking at the practice from the outside-in.  He uses three case studies to show the main uses and techniques employed with digital sampling.  First of which is a “song” created by Paul Lansky with recordings of human voices speaking random words entitled “Notjustmoreidlechatter.”  The complicated issue of speech and music is addressed through this first instance of sampling and Katz identifies the specifications and implications of either one.  Secondly, he compares two pop songs, Camille Yarbrough’s “Take Yo’ Praise” and Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You,” which uses bits of the former in its creation of the latter.  Finally, he breaks down the numerous sampled bits in Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power.”  Public Enemy’s strong political message coupled with the nature of his samplings creates one of the most powerful sample-ridden songs of contemporary music. 

Katz only does so after first clarifying with the reader what exactly sampling is.  This definition has been found in the majority of the sources, but none went on to detail the legal issues as well as Katz.  He also goes on to explore the question of originality and immorality in terms of remixing and sampling.  Nevertheless, his case studies have proven most useful in determining the full extensions of digital sampling in music and his insight into its effect on music today.  He also lightly touches on the various effects parodies have upon the original work, if any, and acknowledges the complexities within the industry when it comes to approval for such works.  This book could possibly be the best source found thus far, seeing as it is not overly specific in its subject matter, yet it explores enough topics in a reasonable level of detail to be reliable. 

 

Lee Marshall, co-editor of the very first source, "Music and Copyright – Second Edition," authors this work of similar form but on a slightly different subject.  The strictness of copyright law in terms of music is once again revisited but is no longer commented on as either fostering or inhibiting creativity in the industry.  Lee more explicitly lays out the fundamentals of copyright law, especially when it applies to bootlegging and piracy, and he broadens the discussion outside of the United States to international copyright law. 

            Prior to his outline of the bootlegging/piracy portion of the industry, Marshall itemizes the four main copyright issues in music.  The first two he identifies as the copyright of the original work itself: song and lyrics.  Beyond that, he clarifies the issue of copyright of the recording and who often owns the rights to a song produced in a studio.  Lastly, he outlines the details of copyright it terms of the performance and the differing stipulations both in the United States and abroad.  Marshall then asserts that the main concerns over performers’ rights stem from issues regarding bootlegging, and he goes on to explain the complicated laws concerning it. 

            Bootlegging and piracy are two of the main portions of copyright law that are most closely related to, if not directly cited in, cases involving digital sampling.  By referencing Marshall’s comprehensive look at copyright law as it pertains to bootlegging, I can not only ascertain for myself whether or not a particular usage is acceptable or not, but I can also refer to the various case studies employed by Marshall if unsure.  In writing this final essay, Marshall’s detailed work on bootlegging and piracy in terms of copyright law has certainly been a valuable source to cite.

 

An academic journal from Columbia University, this source is the first on the list to fully support the other side of the argument between song samplers and those being sampled.  McGiverin begins the journal by arguing for the musician’s rights to be compensated for any and all portions of his work that are reproduced in another work.  He then goes on to divide his work into three main portions: the first of which describes sampling and its implications in the music industry, the second applies the 1976 Copyright Act to sampling from phonorecords, and finally the third investigates state common law and rights of publicity in terms of musicians’ control over their original work. 

            A source of this nature is essential for any paper analyzing the issue of sampling in the music industry, seeing as it provides the exact counter-argument of a few of the sources found.  McGiverin continues to refer to an artist’s sampled work as his or her “auditory identity,” giving great importance to the underlying bass lines and riffs that make up the background of a performance.  In doing so, he asserts the value of these otherwise-overlooked aspects of a work.  Seeing that they are often the portion involved in the sampling, they should be given greater significance and, as McGiverin believes, the original artist should be compensated for their use. 

            As mentioned above, this source is arguably the most important, simply because of the point of view that it represents.  Although this paper has been unbiased in theory, the majority of the sources were all either neutral or in support of one side of the argument.  By providing an intelligent and fresh insight into this half of the issue, this source is one of a few to complete the perspective in order to find a well-informed answer to the question concerning the limits and merits of digital sampling in the music industry. 

 

This source happens to be a blog entry written by a visiting professor at Washington College of Law who is also on the board of Creative Commons at the college.  The blog is a response to a Sixth Circuit court interpretation of the Copyright Act in the case of Bridgeport Music vs. Dimension Films which stated that artists must either have a license or abandon their sampling.  Carroll then continues to explain a few stipulations in the Copyright Act and their involvement in this court decision, namely Section 114 and Section 106. 

            Carroll analyzes the courts assessment of de minimus in the Copyright Act and how it was originally interpreted in the local Bridgeport court.  In the appellate court, however, Carroll finds fault with the way the court approached its decision, moving straight to Section 114 instead of focusing on Section 106.  He disagrees with their reading of the Act and consequently, their decision to remove de minimus from the realm of sound recordings, stating that he does not believe there is a “statutory basis for the rule announced by the court in this case.”

            Carroll’s stance in the Creative Commons forum at a prominent law school in the United States, as well as his origins in, and knowledge of, international copyright law once again present the material in a newly-cast light.  The case he references is one of much importance to the focus of this final paper and his commentary on the subject is clear and well-formed.  This source provides a very narrow view into one single court decision that acts as a useful spotlight among other more general sources. 

This article primarily focuses on the music industry and the influences of file sharing on the advancement of sales. This introspective look on one particular facet of file sharing also promotes further analysis of future complications that may result from the passing of the ACTA. Author Alejandro Zentner claims that music sales have fallen substantially over the past four years. To support this theory, the author uses modeling techniques with country-level data to determine particular facets of the industry that are most heavily influenced and effected. Zentner’s studies showed that countries with higher internet usage and broadband penetration suffered the highest drops in music sales, suggesting that illegal music downloading explains the reduction in sales. Within this model, the author further extrapolates that file sharing may explain the change in the composition of music sales over the past four years. The conclusion Zentner comes to states that "strong intellectual property rights create monopoly distortions, but weak property rights may lead to low creation of artistic work. The development of faster connections and methods of accessing information more efficiently will severely impact the sales of goods." As a result, intellectual property rights are compromised over the mass dissemination of music, and other goods, through illegal downloading.

This article provides a particularly nice vantage point from which to look at the effects of file sharing on the economy. Zentner’s analysis examines these effects in a quantitative manner and links reasons for the ACTA’s birth over the past few years. Though focusing more on the drop in music sales over the past few years, this article looks at the effects of file sharing on the shape of sales, a strong influence on my argument about the future of file sharing.

 

    Toward the end of Chapter two, Hinduja defines what is considered copyright infringement. On pages 33 and 34 he quotes from the United States Copyright Office the rights of an owner of a copyright. These reasons include the right to reproduce the work in copies, to prepare works based upon the original work, to distribute copies, and to perform and display the work publicly. After this brief outline of copyright infringement, he goes into the copyright of sound recordings and digital music distribution.

    Sound recordings have copyrights on the musical work which includes the notes and lyrics and also on the actual recording which is everything that goes into the production of a song written to a medium such as a cd. Hinduja gives examples of music piracy involving MP3s. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the legal concepts are copyright infringement and vicarious liability. A person who makes MP3s available for distribution for example is violating copyright infringement. Vicarious liability occurs when a person who is able to control the actions of a copyright violator fails to do so. To further explain digital music piracy, Hinduja cites numerous examples of legislation and gives a brief explaination of each example.

    In chapter 7, Hinduja talks about how the music industry has struggled with the rise in popularity of the MP3. According to many supporters, the music industry was too late in their embracement of MP3 phenomenon and that they would have experienced a greater increase in revenue had they not spent time trying to combat the "digital music revolution."

    Hinduja also gives advice on different marketing strategies to increase revenue in the music industry. He gives examples of a few musicians and their strategies to market their music. One example he gives is David Bowie and his use of the internet to expand his popularity on a global scale. Bowie offered free downloads for songs off of upcoming albums and also live concerts to fans who visited his website. He also held contests such as opportunities for fans to write lyrics to have the chance to be included on one of his new albums.

     The book provides useful information on the subject of piracy and gives strategies that could be useful to the music industry in order to fight piracy.

  The premise of this article is a study done by the authors which explored seven variables that influence music piracy rates across different countries. The seven variables they looked at were economic development, income inequality, individualism v. collectivism, level of education, intellectual property protection, music CD price, and music market size.

     The economic development factor is one of the most common influential factors for piracy. Researchers hypothesize that the higher a countries economic development, the lower its rate of music piracy. Individuals who are rich have no need to obtain pirated copies of music. They also found that patent protection has a very strong correlation to high economic development. Therefore more developed countries seem to have stronger patent laws.

     With the income inequality factor the authors hypothesized that the rate of music piracy would be greater in countries with higher levels of income inequality. Developing countries usually have a much smaller middle class than developed countries. In an income inequality setting, the higher income groups are more likely to have access to technical devices which can be used to pirate music.

     The authors found that the rate of piracy was greater in some countries that had a higher per capita income than others. They therefore concluded that piracy cannot be explained by only economic variables. They looked at countries that are more individualistic such as the United States and compared them to other countries such as China who have more of a collectivist culture and found that collectivistic countries have significantly higher rates of piracy. Collectivistic societies put a greater emphasis on sharing within a group which could explain the higher rates.

     Another predictor of piracy that the authors used was education level. They explained that people who are more highly educated are more developed both ethically and morally and therefore are more likely to view piracy as an unethical behavior.

     The fifth predictor was intellectual property protection. There is no uniform standard of protection for intellectual property therefore some countries have stricter laws to protect from intellectual copyright infringement. The countries with the stricter laws have lower rates of music piracy.

     The next predictor mentioned was the price of music CDs. In some countries CDs are relatively expensive and therefore not as available to the general public. Because of this people are more likely to buy pirated CDs which are cheap and easier to obtain.

     The last predictor that the authors explain is the size of the music market in the country. They suggest that people in countries with a large music market might see music as a social value and therefore want to enforce copyright laws in order to protect from piracy.

     This article helped me to gain an understanding as to why music piracy rates are higher in some countries but not in others. It  shows a perspective of piracy not seen in more westernized cultures such as the United States.

 

     The SaveNetRadio coalition is a response to the royalty increase in the March 2007 Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) ruling. The coalition consists of artists, labels, listeners, and webcasters that believe another solution must be created in order to prevent internet radio stations from shutting down. The CRB decision will harm millions of music listeners, performers who depend on the internet radio to increase their audience, and webcasters who make a living from streaming music online.
     SaveNetRadio exposes the unreal myths and harsh facts about the cost of webcasting. While the internet radio is the smallest medium within the radio business, it pays the most royalties. Broadcast radio and satellite radio are subject to small or no royalties at all. The predicted combined revenue for internet radio services is $73.6 million, but 58% of that revenue will be used for royalty payments. Internet radio is one of the most important sources for music listeners. About seven million Americans a days use internet radio. Although the popularity of internet radio has increased tremendously, it is still a small, growing industry. Most webcasters do not generate enough revenue to cover the royalties since they do not have enough sponsors or advertisements to sustain them.
     Another myth concerning royalty rates is that artists and record companies were not being fairly compensated for their work prior to the CRB decision. The reality is that if royalties are too high, internet radio will go out of business, and then performers definitely will not be paid for their work. The high royalties will not allow small or large webcasters to survive, and even if large webcasters can afford the royalties, it will not promote competition and diversity in the internet radio services. While the increase in royalties may seem negligible, tripling the per-song royalty rate adds up to an enormous royalty payment. Besides the per-usage rate, webcasters are also subject to a minimum fee per station and have no option to opt for a revenue-based royalty system.
     SaveNetRadio is an important topic in my paper. It demonstrates the outrage of the music community to the CRB decision. The myths and facts of the cost of webcasting clearly describe the toll that increased royalties will have on small and large webcasters. SaveNetRadio.org is an extremely useful and interesting source. I think it is an excellent way to bring music fans together to fight the unfairness in the royalty system for internet radio stations.

     Beginning on page two of this journal article the author discusses anti-piracy technologies that major music labels are integrating or testing out in order to combat online file sharing. Certain copyright protection systems already implemented by Sony and Bertelsman Music Group (BMG) encode CDs with electronic implements so that they can only be played on a CD player. Sony developed their own anti-piracy technology which they called "key2audio." This piece of technology prevented the use of CDs on personal computers and DVD players. A later version called "key2audio4pc" allows for use on computer but not multiple computers. The music label BMG Entertainment used another company known as Midbar technology to develop a program called Cactus Data Shield. This program prevents individuals from reformatting songs into MP3 files so that they can either make copies or make them available through file-sharing. Two other companies Macrovision and TTR Technologies developed different versions of a technology called Safe Audio. Safe Audio Version 2 allows for use in CD players and PC CD-ROMS but adds background noise to the playback sound if a copy is made to the hard drive or a CD burner. Version 3 allows CDs to be played in CD players but not in CD-ROMS. The Safe Audio technology had difficulty selling in the United States due to fear of consumer's negativity towards the product. As a result of this the Macrovision company released the product SafeAuthenticate which allows CDs that are authenticated by the product's software to be copied to the hard drive and played using Windows Media Player.

     In the conclusion of the article the author talks about the fact that technology is constantly becomming outdated and although it is frustrating for the technology industries they have to learn to adapt to the situation. He states that the anti-piracy software and inhibition of recording devices just brings frustration to consumers and retailers. She suggests that Congress should research what has worked and use that to make changes in order to adapt to the time period.  

 

Thesis: The Copyright Royalty Board's decision to increase royalty fees for online music streaming is unfair and will lead to popular internet radio stations, such as Pandora, to go out of business. Paper proposal: I would like to research and write a paper on Pandora in the context of online music streaming. The paper would focus more on the Pandora case, but I would also discuss the copyright issues concerning internet radio stations. My research would include Pandora's background, its terms of use, and its method of dealing with copyright concerns. I would also research the Copyright Royalty Board and other internet radio stations. This research would allow me to analyze and argue that increasing internet radio fees are putting internet radio companies, such as Pandora, in risk of going out of business. The goal of my paper would be to discuss the fairness of the royalty fees for internet radio stations and use Pandora as the main example and focus of this argument.

    Pandora has become one of the nation’s most popular internet radio stations. It has about one million listeners daily and 40,000 new customers a day. Pandora has made it to the top ten most popular applications for Apple’s iphone. Listeners can create their own stations according to their musical tastes. All of Pandora’s success, however, may soon reach an end with the increasing royalty rates.
    Royalty fees are paid to a single agent SoundExchange, Inc. The organization represents performers and record companies, and it supports the higher rates on the basis that musicians deserve a larger fraction of internet radio profits. “Our artists and copyright owners deserve to be fairly compensated for the blood and sweat that forms the core product of these businesses,” said Mike Huppe, general counsel for SoundExchange. The organization also believes that internet radio has not done enough to profit from streaming music.
    Some musicians defend Pandora and other internet radio stations on the other hand. Webcasters argue that internet radio offers a larger range of music than traditional radio and also promotes independent musicians. While traditional radio does not pay royalties and satellite radio pay 6-7% of their revenue, webcasters must pay per song and per listener. With the new royalty decision doubling the per performance rates, Pandora and other webcasters may go out of business. Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora, predicts that royalty fees will amount to $17 million this year, which is 70% of the projected revenue. “We’re funded by venture capital,” [Westergren] said, “They’re not going to chase a company whose business model has been broken. So if it doesn’t feel like it’s headed toward a solution, we’re done.”
    This newspaper article is important for my paper because it portrays the trememdous effect the new royalties will have on Pandora. Westergren repeatedly states that the company will go out of business, and this is important for my paper. Performers will not be paid more for their work if there is no internet radio station that will be in business to pay them. In order to ensure a fair royalty rate, the company must not be threatened to close down. My paper defends another model for determining the royalties and argues against the latest copyright ruling on the royalty rates. This article is important because it not only demonstrates the copyright ruling from Pandora's point of view but also from SoundExchange's perspective.

    Matt Nathanson is a songwriter, performer, and recording artist. He is also the most played artist on Pandora.com. In his testimony at the hearing on “Music and Radio in the 21st Century: Assuring Fair Rates and Rules across Platforms,” Nathanson emphasizes the importance of internet music and internet radio. Before iTunes, Amazon, and other internet music sources were available, only a handful of artists succeeded. Nowadays, with internet radio stations, such as Pandora and Yahoo!, people are exposed to a variety of music and different genres. Nathanson relates how his own success was contributed by his exposure on internet radio. Internet radio has given independent artists and labels an opportunity to be heard by the public. Customers buy from a much broader group of artists thanks to internet music.
     Nathanson also discusses the financial concerns behind the royalty debate. “When a song I write is played on broadcast, satellite or Internet radio, they pay me an amount which is reasonably related to their revenue. Higher revenue stations pay a bit more; smaller stations and services pay a bit less. But when a song that I perform is played, broadcast radio pays me nothing; satellite radio pays me a reasonable royalty that when combined with other artist payments effectively equals 6% of its revenue; but Internet radio services pay me and other artists a per-song fee that is unrelated to the revenue of the service, which when combined with other artist payments effectively equals 30 or 40 or 70 percent of their revenue or more.” Nathanson argues that it is wrong for the smallest industry to be paying the highest royalty rates. He reports that internet radio is the most important way for independent artists to be heard. He concludes his testimony asking that the royalties changes be made fair for internet radio and demanding that the board keep in mind the future generation of artists.
     This source provides another perspective of the royalty rate issue for my paper. Nathanson's musical career and success demonstrate the tremendous benefit that internet radio has for the public. His testimony is important for my paper because it is supporting evidence that the copyright ruling is unfair. Nathanson, a musician who receives royalty payments, completely supports Pandora's fight against the increasing royalty rates. His testimony makes a strong case for my paper since he opposes SoundExchange's argument that performers need to be paid more on the basis of fairness.

     John Simson defended the new royalty rulings made by the Copyright Royalty Board in his testimony on "Music and Radio in the 21st Century: Assuring Fair Rates and Rules Across Platforms.” Simson is a former performer, artist manager, music attorney, and presently an executive director of SoundExchange. SoundExchange is the single receiving agent of royalties paid by webcasters. He supports the increasing rates on the basic principle that "the people who create music must be paid." He defends SoundExchange's concern over the business of webcasters but argues that revenues are predicted to increase over the future. SoundExchange currently represents about 31,000 artists and 3,500 labels. Simson emphasizes the hard work put into music creation, and he scorns at those who believe music should be free or those who devalue it. Simson argues that webcasters are contradicting the decisions by the Copyright Royalty Board solely based on their prospective financial gains. He strongly believes that the new rates are fair and that no further negotiations are required.
     Simson’s testimony is important to my paper because it explains the royalty decision from the opposing point of view. Simson directly works for the company receiving the royalties, and so he represents SoundExchange’s opinions. Although Simson argues that fair rates must be ensured for the sake of the musicians, SoundExchange is also benefitting from the increasing rates. This testimony is important to my paper in order to prove that SoundExchange is biased in its strong royalty support.

The case in which the court wrote: "Get a license or do not sample. We do not see this as stifling creativity in any significant way." A bit of a setback for mashup/music collage artists. We studied this one in class, but it's certainly relevant and important to this topic. The George Clinton estate sued because a short sample of a Clinton song was employed in a different song. The court came down very harshly against the samplers, ruling that all samples must be licensed or else the sampler has stolen from the original author.

This case is extremely relevant to my paper because it is my contention that the court was wrong in dismissing unlicensed sampling as theft. Although I am very willing to admit that sampling of copyrightable material can infringe on the original copyright, it is my contention that if sampling artists are careful to make sure that all of their uses are transformative, it is possible to sample in a constructive and legal manner without a license.

The article begins with a brief legal history of sampling in the US. It then goes on to argue against three common conceptions ("myths" according to the author) about sampling.

1) Sampling is Analogous to Borrowing, Quoting or Imitating Prior Works: The author argues that since one is taking a piece of the actual recording, the sampler is not borrowing. They are stealing. She likens the offense to breaking into another lawyer's office and lifting passages from the lawyer's arguments into ones own and then claiming that you were merely paying homage to the lawyer's great work.

2) Because Sampling is a Legitimate Art Form, Samplers Should be Entitled to Freely Use Other Musicians' Original Copyrighted Material: In this section, the author essentially argues against the idea that sampling is a legitimate artform, arguing that the sampler is merely pushing a button and letting technology do all the work. Therefore, there is not artistic value added by the sampler and the sample should not be considered fair use.

3) In Order to Achieve the Proper Balance of Copyright Protection, We Must Err on the Side of Giving More Protection to Samplers Than Sampled Musicians: The author argues that to allow sampling would discourage the creation of original works of the type that samplers sample. Again, the author uses examples like the lawyer in myth 1 - what if a new filmmaker used the battle scenes from Gone With The Wind in their movie because they couldn't afford to film new scenes? It wouldn't be tolerated, even though it would encourage the new artist to make more material.

 

While it is certainly interesting to hear the arguments of the anti-samplers, it is my opinion that the author has a poor understanding of the process of sampling. Her examples are especially revealing - as a lawyer, her tendency is to think of sampling in the same way that one might think about copying a part of an argument. The instances are not analagous, however. An expository work like a lawyer's argument cannot be transformed by use in another expository work. When a sampler takes a portion of another artist's music and use it in a mix (or at least when they do it well) they transform the work into something new. Thinking as a lawyer will never apply because a lawyer will not be able to capture the artistic latitude that an artist has in creating a new work.

Opinions Included:

Fred Fisher, Inc., v. Dillingham et al., 298 F. 145 (S.D.N.Y. 1924)

Darrell v. Joe Morris Music Co., 113 F.2d 80 (2d Cir. 1940)

Arnstein v. Porter, 154 F.2d 464 (2d Cir. 1946)

ABKCO Music, Inc. v. Harrisongs Music, Ltd., 722 F.2d 988 (2d Cir. 1983)

Three Boys Music Corp. v. Bolton, 212 F.3d 477 (9th Cir. 2000)

Selle v. Gibb, 741 F.2d 896 (7th Cir. 1984)

*IMPORTANT* Grand Upright Music Ltd. v. Warner Brothers Records, Inc., 780 F. Supp. 182 (S.D.N.Y. 1991)

 

 

 

"All members of a culture that practice music are expected to be abelt to engage with music in culturally appropriate ways" (1: Cross 2008)

"Introduction
In this paper I shall make a number of claims about music. I shall claim that music,
like language, is a fundamental part of the human communicative toolkit. It is
unique and specific to humans, but music is not "natural" while language is
symbolic; music and language are both equally symbolic and natural domains of
human thought and behaviour. I shall propose that music - musicality - underpins
the intellectual and social flexibility displayed by modern humans. As a corollary of
this, I shall claim that many of the most important abstract concepts that frame and
give meaning to human interaction - such as social justice, that aspect of morality
which is concerned with the achievement of equity in human relations - have their
roots in human musicality. I am not proposing that without music there can be no
social justice; I am simply submitting that without musicality the flexibility in
managing social relations that characterises modern humans and that constitutes the
matrix within which abstract conceptions such as social justice can take form is less
likely to have arisen."

More great resources.

Great video.

Website for television network called BET

website used to order movies and music from bestbuy

used to find music videos from various artist. Also to find funny videos from wherever

site for having fun when your  bored used to make new friends and chat with old ones

Albert Music Hall. Traditional musical gatherings of the NJ Pinelands. An evening of live country, bluegrass, and pinelands music each Saturday night at 7:30 PM. Year round

Sheer, Miriam. "The Godard/Beethoven Connection: On the Use of Beethoven's Quartets in Godard's Films." The Journal of Musicology, 18.1 170-188.

This article by Miriam Sheer discusses Godard's artistic use of Beethoven's string quartert in four of his films, and how this use reflects his sensitivity to the social differentiation of musical styles. His specific mixing of musical styles in certain films emphasizes their respective social connotations, and complements the situations and personalities of the characters whom they accompany. Sheer quotes an interview with Abraham Segal in which Godard said, "I try to use music like another picture which isn't a picture, like another element. Like another sound, but in a different form."

The description of Godard's use of Beethoven in many of his films parallels a commentary on his use of jazz in Breathless. His use of jazz references the classic American crime drama, in which jazz is used to insinuate impending moments of danger.  In Breathless, jazz is used in countless situations such as when Michel picks up newspapers, which warn of his imminent arrest, and in a crescendo just before he murders a cop. The rhythmic structure of jazz as a musical genre echoes the spontaneity and improvisational nature of the film and its protagonist (Michel). In contrast to Michel's jazzy motif, Patricia is often accompanied by more orchestral, dreamy and romantical music, which is more representative of her character.

Monahan, Mark. "Music that makes a man a killer Bernard Herrmann's film scores spoke as loudly as any dialogue, says Mark Monahan." The Daily Telegraph 1 July 2006. 8 April 2008.

Mark Monahan writes about Mr. Bernard Herrmann’s musical career spanning from Citizen Kane in 1941 through Taxi Driver in 1976.  Monahan asserts that creating music for motion pictures is an incredibly arduous task and that the people responsible for it are extraordinarily talented.  He feels that cinema would be unimaginable if not for the fantastic and wild feelings created by film scores.  Monahan writes that he considers Bernard Herrmann to be one of the leading film composers of the last 100 years.  Herrmann, a Russian born immigrant attended NYU to study music and made his Broadway debut at the young age of 20.  He began composing for CBS radio shows and this put him into contact with Orson Welles.  Welles took Herrmann on for the film Citizen Kane, and thereby launched the composer’s long and successful scoring career.  After Kane, Herrmann teamed with Hitchcock and was responsible for the musical scores of all the great Hitchcock films through the end of the 1960s.  Monahan has much respect for Herrmann’s talent. He writes that, “Rather than merely setting the scene or complementing the action (though they do both magnificently), [Herrmann’s scores] virtually are the action, brilliantly elucidating the characters' gnarled inner lives.”  He says that the opening scene of Citizen Kane (the ascending of Xanadu’s fence) is given “a sense of dread, regret and death of the soul…”  Herrmann’s most famous musical passage is the shrieking violins of the Psycho’s shower scene.  In his later career he works for French and American New Wave filmmakers. 

The musical score to any film is one of the most psychologically defining aspects of the experience.  The music, much like lighting, sets a mood.  Before the audience even knows what will happen on screen, they can get a sense of what might happen just based on the musical foreshadowing.  Herrmann brilliantly uses his musical score to set the mood and tone in Citizen Kane.  In happy scenes such as those with the young Kane attending parties in his honor, the music is light and we think nothing of it.  In more dramatic scenes such as the initial scene of Xanadu, the newsreel scenes, and the final scene of the film with the revelation of Rosebud, the music obviously takes a more dramatic and serious tone. 

Shumway, David R. “Rock 'n' Roll Sound Tracks and the Production of Nostalgia” Cinema Journal 38.2 (1999): 36-51
The article discusses the idea of soundtracks and their growth in modern film. A soundtrack is described as an album put together consisting of prerecorded music with the aim of linking ideas of the film with concepts that the audiences understands through recognized music. The article states that the concept of a rock and roll soundtrack became popular with the films The Graduate, and Easy Rider.  While The Graduate features pop music that provides nostalgia, Easy Rider includes music that represents youthful rebellion. The music in Easy Rider is diegetic, while it is not in The Graduate, but it is meant to be heard and contributes to the film. In Easy Rider, the music often exists to send a message and is the focus of attention. The article also touches upon the idyllic idea of generational cohesion that is present in the music of the film. The plot of the film abnegates the concept however, as the dreams of communalism are ended with the deaths of the main characters.  The article also discusses at length the nostalgic role of music in the films American Graffiti, The Big Chill, Dirty Dancing, and Baby, It’s You.
Reading this article provides acumen for Easy Rider as a complete work. The music becomes just as important as the plot, as it contributes to the message. The fact that the music in the film was all prerecorded instead of the film having a score supports the idea of auteurism because all of the music was chosen from the filmmaker's personal collection. The music also provides a way for the audience to connect to the story on a personal level. In moments when the music is the focus of the film, the viewer can feel the mood of the story and understand the message through lyrics.

This book by Charles Dowsett offeres his deep philological knowledge and insight into the legendary and almost mystical figure, Sayat Nova. It can be safely said that hardly anything was known to western world about this legendary Armenian troubadour Sayat Nova till this study was translated into French, and to English. His multilingual talent, that resembles the one of the subject matter, Sayat Nova allows him to look at the poems by Sayat Nova not only from mere literature point of view but also his multiculturality and internationality. 

In the book, Dowsett reveals the mystified life of Sayat Nova; The author scrupulously points out Sayat Nova’s international identity by nature; born into moderate Armenian family in Georgia, who spoke multiple languages including, Georgian, Armenian, Azeri, Turkish, and Persian, in which he produced his work of poetry and music. (His most famous work move fluently between all four languages.) He was active as court troubadour in Georgia in his early life, but was expelled to Armenia where he joined the local church to continue his practice. It also points out his extraordinary religious perspective and his life as a priest, and, importantly, the ethnic tolerance; he uses Persian vocabrary in many of his poems and appealed to Muslim audiences as well. In some of his poem he displayed his sympathy for Islam. He asserted that he perceived himself as “ bridge between the various Caucasian Peoples. For my own sake of argument, this legendary figure Sayat Nova, and the life of the director Sergei Paradjanov have undeniably much in common starting from their multilingual ability and intercultural identity as well as their broad range of active field.

Kosovsky, Robert. "[Untitled]." Rev. of Citizen Kane, the Magnificent Ambersons, by Bernard Hermann. American Music: 221-227.

 

Citizen Kane was the first film project on which Academy Award winning composer Bernard Hermann worked, and the music he created played an integral role in defining the characters of the film and crafting Citizen Kane as a creative work. This article explains the role that Bernard Hermann played in making Citizen Kane a great film, the relationship between Hermann and Welles, and explains the technical side of how Hermann made the different “cues” for the film.

As is mentioned in the article, Hermann and Welles both worked on radio in their early careers, where Hermann composed and arranged upwards of 2,500 shows for CBS. This is where Welles and Hermann met, both exploring their respective arts and collaborating occasionally on shows, including Welles’ famous rendition of War of the Worlds that sent thousands of people across the United States into hysterics. When Welles got his first film deal to make Citizen Kane, he insisted upon having Hermann do the music, giving Hermann his first opportunity to compose for a film. Hermann proved to be exceptional in this and his future projects because while he understood that the primary role of a film score was to complement the visuals of the film, his extensive experience in radio ensured that his scores could act as standalone pieces, as well.

Also, the article discusses the technical side of composing for cinema, explaining how Hermann used “leitmotifs” – a kind of recurring musical motif in reference to a character, location, or theme – to strengthen the relationship between the score and the visuals, creating leitmotifs for many of the films key players, Rosebud, and the various mental states that Kane experienced throughout the film.

This article specifically speaks of communication through music while emphasizing the importance of human behavior that is recognized based on the context of music. The author states that while it is easy for even the untrained ear to understand the artists' temperament while listening to a particular song, this analysis can go beyond one person and can be applied to an entire culture. This is possible because one can frame "behavior" in a cultural setting. Thus, if a culture has a particular ‘style' of music that it can be broken down into, this ‘style' is a reflection of the culture itself and a progression or change in that style within a framework of time is representative of change within that culture. The author uses a system of "cantometrics" for rating a song and eventually leading to the possibility of using song as an indicator of "social and psychological pattern in a culture."

Pather Panchali literally translates to "path of song" or "song of the little road." Panchali here specifically refers to a type of narrative folk song that was performed in Bengal in the early twentieth century. Thus the name of the film is itself representative of the time period it was made in, as well as the culture it alludes to. Composed by maestro Ravi Shankar, the music stays noticeably in tune with the emotional stability of the characters that live in a remote village in Bengal in the 1950's. The art of the music is wedded to the truth of the characters themselves and thus the movie as a compositional whole becomes reflective of the lives of a poor family living in Bengal.

Celluloid Jukebox, edited by Jonathan Romney and Adrian Wootton, is a collection of essays from famous filmmakers and musicians all regarding the relationship of popular music and film since the 1950’s.  In this book, many essays make stark remarks on the influence of A Hard Day’s Night in the connection between pop music and film.  Andy Medhurst’s essay, for example, entitled “It Sort of Happened Here: The Strange, Brief Life of the British Pop Film”, on numerous occasions makes the claim that “the film which irrevocably sundered that connection [between pop music and film] was A Hard Day’s Night,” and that “the kind of static on-stage set-piece that was one of the many causalities of the new approach [was] pioneered by A Hard Day’s Night.”  The section of the book, however, that is most supportive of my thesis is the final section of interviews, which asked a number of famous filmmakers what their favorite pop movies are.  In response to this question, Cameron Crowe, Amos Poe, and Allison Anders all claimed A Hard Day’s Night.
Allison Anders, a producer of many notable films such as Martin Scorsese’s Grace of the Heart, is quoted as saying, “the very first intoxicated experience of music and movies working together, needless to say, [was] A Hard Day’s Night.”  She then went on to say, “when I went to see the movie, I didn’t see the movie itself until I saw it for maybe the tenth time because we were screaming through the whole thing.  So it was like seeing a concert with all the little girls.”  This quote supports my thesis that A Hard Day’s Night was the first film to successfully unite the pop cultures of film and music in a way that no film previously had, and that it in fact is the first true rock and roll film.  Anders’ response to the film, like so many others’, was because of the novelty of the style of this production.  A Hard Day’s Night really was like watching a concert for an hour and a half on the silver-screen, and therefore was indeed a rock and roll film.  It was different than any other films that came before it, and it forever changed the way music and film interacted.  This book, Celluloid Jukebox, gives a great inside understanding of A Hard Day’s Night’s influence on music’s role in film.  It speaks of all the films to the present that have used pop music in a similar fashion to the 1964 Beatles’ comedy, and therefore is a great source for my thesis.

"The Indiana University Veriations2 and Variations3 projects use a work-based metadata model for discovery of musical sound recordings, scanned score images, and encoded score notation files. This model has been described as ³FRBR-like² and is mentioned in various discussions of FRBR-based systems, but it is not technically a FRBR implementation.

As the project team investigates long-term sustainability issues for the Variations3 software, we have begun thinking about what a truly FRBR-ized version of the metadata model would look like, and if changing to this type of model would make our system more sustainable and interoperable. As a first step towards answering these questions, members of the Variations3 project team have released a report outlining the potential application of FRBR to a system designed to deliver musical content in a library environment."

The goal of my research is to take a close look at Disney's history of successful feature animated and live-action musicals to demonstrate that these movies are the source of Disney's success and should be their current focus as well. I am specifically interested in the recent movie High School Musical, and I plan to use it as a case study about how musicals in general are a better source of entertainment for children. Disney's marketing of High School Musical made use of many new forms of media and took advantage of the cross-platform media available to such an all-encompassing conglomerate. I also will look at research studies concerning children's attentiveness to different forms of media to show that they are more likely to show repeated interest in and remember songs than standard dialogue. How many of your favorite childhood songs were from Disney movies?

Throughout Smith and Clark’s catalog of one hundred years of Disney endeavors, one particular element of their success is consistent: feature animation musicals. At practically every turning point in the company’s history, the great success that brought the studio back out of the red was always a successful feature animation, and not just that, but a musical too. Disney’s initial success in the business of cartoons was with Steamboat Willie (1928), which was the first “synchronized sound cartoon” and put Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse on the map (p. 24). Soon after, Walt and Roy Disney formed their own recording company to make back the money they spent on sound equipment. The world’s first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was also the first film whose movie soundtrack was created using the original movie soundtracks, and it was the first film to have a merchandising campaign established to coincide with the release of the film into theaters. Everyone left the theater singing one of Snow White’s songs.
    The nineteen forties left Disney headed toward failure with the loss of their international markets because of the war. They invested everything they could in a new feature animation: Cinderella (1950), and they ended up with a huge success. The fate of the company rode on the success of the movie because of all of the labor and money put into creating it, and with both its score and the song “Bibbidi-Bobbidi Bo” nominated for Oscars, Disney realized that their salvation was in the creation of more feature animated musicals.
    Of course not every feature was as profitable. Disney invested over six million dollars in creating Sleeping Beauty (1959), its “most lavish and costly” film up to that point, but its initial release did not do as well as they’d hoped (p. 85). Luckily, Mary Poppins (1964) flew in with her umbrella and created a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious film that received thirteen Oscar nominations and five awards.
    The authors mark 1984 as the lowest point financially for Disney theatrical releases in thirty years. Under the new leadership of Michael Eisner and Frank Wells, though, the company started turning around. By 1989, The Little Mermaid put Disney back at the top. It was the first of five Disney feature animations in a row to win the Oscars for Best Original Score and Best Song, and it caused for “renewed excitement in the animation and musical genres” that set Disney straight for the next decade (p. 151). Beauty and the Beast, which was also nominated for Best Picture in 1991, Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), and Pocahontas (1995), followed equally strongly, and reinvigorated Disney’s animation department. Again, the cause for success was feature animated musicals that brought back both audiences and awards.
    Following the entry for the final year, 1999, the authors take a look into the future at what Disney has planned for the upcoming century. They spelled out every bit of advance information they could get their hands on, and looking back, they were pretty dead on. Two of the major disappointments that they could not have anticipated were the movies Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) and Treasure Planet (2002). Their predicted success was based on the fact that they would have the same directorial and production staff that made the movies of the early nineties so incredibly successful. The missing piece? Music.

A Musical For Tweens Captures Its Audience - New York Times
Ben Sisario, February 8, 2006

    Ben Sisario examines the marketing strategy that went into Disney’s High School Musical and how it was able to engage its target audience with not-yet-standard techniques. The movie premiered on the Disney Channel on January 20th, and by February 8th it was already making news for its popularity. The soundtrack released with the movie reached top 10 of the Billboard charts, made 45 percent of its sales online through iTunes and had no radio airtime outside of Radio Disney’s station, and that was only in the first two weeks.
    Sisario quotes Gary Marsh, president of entertainment for Disney Channel Worldwide, as explaining the value of the story in its themes such as “express yourself, believe in yourself, celebrate your family, follow your dreams,” but it wasn’t just the optimism that made this movie and all of the other media associated with it into such a success. Because Disney’s presence exists across multiple forms of entertainment, it was able to use cross-platform advertising to build excitement about the movie before it was first aired. The show’s characters appeared on a New Years Eve show, the Disney channel played music videos from the movie’s songs “in heavy rotation,” and Disney even offered a free download of the song “Breaking Free” around the time of the premiere. After the movie aired for the first time, Disney directed viewers to a sing-along version online where they could download the lyrics. According to Sisario, the lyrics were downloaded 500,000 times in the first 24 hours. That’s successful cross-marketing.
    Disney capitalized on its integration of web content into the TV market, something that they’ve gotten very good at of late. They also benefited from the fact that the movie and soundtrack were released in the winter, specifically because of the holiday sales of iPods and iTunes gift certificates.
    Sisario sees this movie as the beginning of “a new musical phase,” referring to the previous cultivation of pop stars Brittney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and the members of ’N Sync. They are creating a new generation of pop icons following the success of Hillary Duff, which began with her TV show “Lizzy McGuire.” The most interesting element of the movie and album’s success is the fact that it did not rely on traditional radio or MTV for its publicity. They know that their audience, because of their age, is very comfortable with the internet and digital music, so they were able to make use of their own website and their relationship with Apple’s iTunes to set the movie up for success.

JSTOR: Music Educators Journal: Vol. 32, No. 5, p. 18-19. April 1946

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0027-4321%28194604%2932%3A5%3C18%3AMOTAP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O

    This article analyzes the use of music in animated cartoon movies, contrasting its use with that of live action films. Since animated movies are more exaggerated and are filled with constant motion, a composer needs to make his music do the same. Rodriguez begins by examining the role of music in movies more generally. He defines the difference between a screenplay with music and a musical by stating that screen plays use music to enhance the emotion of a scene or clarify a point to the viewer, but they keep the plot is still the central focus of the movie. In musicals, however, the plot can be completely swept to the side to make room for a musical number that has little to do with the actual story of the movie but is there for pure entertainment.
    Because cartoons are by their nature based in fantasy rather than reality, Rodriguez states that a composer working on a score for an animated movie has a much greater task ahead of him than if he were working on a live action film. The actions of the animated characters are timed down to the frame, which is 1/24th of a second. In order to fit the action perfectly, then, a composer must change his frame of reference from the usual beats per measure approach to beats per frame. This argument seems to work for live action as well, since in the end everything is broken down into frames to be projected, but Rodriguez claims that synchronization of action with music in live action films is coincidental and unlikely while it is “almost a rule of life with animation composers.” (p. 19) The music must be constantly active and moving, simply because the characters are. A good composer must know how to make his music as humorous and exaggerated as Donald Duck of Goofy but also be able to convey the tenderness and emotion found in many animated films. Rodriguez specifically mentions Dumbo, Bambi, and Pinocchio in the latter category.
    Although the subtitle of the article reads, “Will ‘Cartoon’ films have a place in music education?” the author only mentions music education in passing in his last paragraph. He laments that not enough researchers or critics are writing about how well cartoons can teach music to children. His idea of music instruction is creating an animation that is didactic in nature, instructing children about notes, musical structures, harmonies, and other complicated elements of music that are not easily explained otherwise. The fact that music can be added to animation would only serve to illustrate the different sounds that would be taught in the animation. In my opinion, his focus on education is quite limited to high level music theory and could be extended much further. Rodriguez mentions Fantasia in a reference to animation set to pre-composed music, but he failed to note how the animation visually conveyed the different elements and tones in the music, making the music’s qualities apparent both to the ear and to the eye.

 

MEDIA; The Top-Selling Tunes on Billboard, Sung by Children for Children - New York Times
Robert Levine, March 6, 2006

    The New York Times considered the growing market of children’s music important enough to report about. The news isn’t exactly news: music for kids, especially music recorded by other kids, is going to sell. Following the success of the soundtrack for High School Musical, which was the top album for 2006, other recording companies are seeing an opening for more albums for kids. The article highlights Kidz Bop, a series of albums containing covers of famous pop songs sung by children ages 8-12 with an “intentionally imperfect style.” The idea is that kids listening will want to sing along and can more easily imagine themselves as the rock star when the singers on the album aren’t easily identifiable and the vocals are less impressive. These albums, with the eleventh released this year plus a number of holiday and special edition releases, are part of the recent resurgence in children’s music.
    A quick check on Amazon.com reveals some interesting consumer reviews. Most of the reviews actually hate these CDs, but of course the reviewers are adults. They say Kidz Bop is ruining perfectly good and generally appropriate popular songs, and that some of the songs they’re picking are so far from appropriate that even when they’re edited it’s strange to hear such young kids singing them. But there are over thirty hits when searching with the terms “Kidz Bop” under Music on Amazon, so they must be doing something right.
    When the soundtrack for “High School Musical” was number one on the Billboard chart, spots two and three were also albums made for children. As most of the other music genres are noticing a decline in CD sales, children’s music is stable if not increasing. Recording labels are starting to take an interest in audiences too young to pirate their music. Razor and Tie, the independent label responsible for Kidz Bop, does most of their advertising directly television, and so far it’s been working well. They’re in direct competition with Disney, which has access to both the Disney Channel and Radio Disney to promote its music. At the time of the article, Disney was coming out with Devo 2.0 on its new label Disney Sound, described as “still safe, but it’s got a little bit of an edge,” by a marketing vice president at Walt Disney Records.

 

 

This annotated bibliography serves to support that: "Most rap music as an art form intrinsically relies on music sampling to exist. Current copyright law as it relates to fair use of music sampling severely limits hip hop artists and composers, almost to the point of killing the genre. Specifically, the case of Bridgeport v. Dimension Films outlaws the use of any sampling without proper payment to the copyright owner. This decision has made it impossible for the non-wealthy to enter the public hip hop market and limits the creativity of those already in."

Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films, No. 01-00412—Thomas A. Higgins, District Judge (2005). 

This case involves N.W.A.'s song "100 Miles and Runnin" which has a two second sample from George Clinton Jr. and the Funkadelic's song "Get Off Your Ass and Jam". N.W.A. just took that 2 second clip, lowered the pitch and looped it on their song. Since this was done without getting consent from Bridgeport Music, Dimension Films was brought to court because N.W.A.'s song was featured on the soundtrack of one of their movies, I Got the Hook Up. Bridgeport, however, entered into two agreements with two of the owners of "100 Miles and Runnin", which granted them the license to sample so Bridgeport was originally ruled against by the U.S. district court. Bridgeport argued that "(1) that the sample was not protected by copyright law because it was not "original"; and (2) that the sample was legally insubstantial and therefore does not amount to actionable copying under copyright law." Then the case was taken to the Sixth Circuit. Here the court used the factors for exclusive rights in the Copyright Act of 1976 and ultimately ruled that Bridgeport's copyright rights had been violated.

One of the most important issues here would be that of de minimis. It is defined as something that is so small and insubstantial that it can be overlooked, which three notes seemed to be initially. The Sixth Circuit ruled that this and substantial similarity should not be factored in when ruling on a sound recording. Since there was no debate about whether or not part of "Get Off Your Ass and Jam" and was copied, which it was, the court ruled in favor of Bridgeport Music. This ruling ties heavily into the rap industry as de minimis is often relied upon by producers. While Vanilla Ice shouldn't be able to get away with using virtually the same song as another group without permission, it was often acceptable to take a small piece of another work and build off that. This ruling causes the prevention of this in many cases. Producers would not be able to borrow anything due to de minimis becoming outlawed in a sense for sound recording cases, which is where hip hop music needs it. If the law were to continually make rulings that further narrow the range for sampling, those rappers/producers without much money would be scared off because they could not borrow even the tiniest bit from another song, stifling their creativity due to a ruling against one of the conventions of their genre of music.

belongs to Copyright and Culture: Sampling and the demise of hip hop project
tagged Bridgeport NWA copyright hip_hop license music sampling by grahama ...on 28-NOV-06