This article talks about Bridgeport Music, Inc. a company that sues rappers for the use of music that it owns. The company recently sued Jay-Z for his use of  a few notes from Madonna’s Justify My Love song for his Justify My Thug song. Madonna was not the one who was suing Jay-Z it was the Brigeport Music group, who claims to own the notes that Jay-Z used. Not only is the company seeking damages but also demanding that the song stop being distributed. The article calls the company the  sample troll. The company sues artists for use of the songs it claims to own, even though the way they come to own the songs are thought of as shady in most cases.  Bridgeport has launched over 500 counts of copyright infringement against more than 800 artists. The article’s author makes the comparison between the way in which Bridgeport Music sues frequently as imagining that the owner of Lord of the Rings sued everyone who used the word elf in its books. The author begs the question is the Bridgeport Group just trying to do the right thing by artists, and help them to get the money they deserve from large artists as a sort of copyright Robin Hood. The reason why this is not viable, is because the money that is gained from these court decisions does not go to the artists who the samples are borrowed from, but to the company itself.

            This article is interesting, because it talks about a catalog company that is suing artists in a massive way. The company looks out for songs with samples for the sole purpose of suing artists. The other cases have artists suing artists or record companies suing record companies, but this case has a third party suing artists. Another interesting point brought up in the article is that some ways that the catalog company obtains the rights to songs are underhanded. George Clinton claims that the rights were stolen from him.

Wu, Tim. "Jay-Z Versus the Sample Troll" Slate November 16, 2006

In order to show that sampling lawsuits in rap music still exist, this article condemns Bridgeport Music for suing Jay-Z over sampling some notes from a Madonna song. This article references many of the others I have because Bridgeport has become notorious for capitalizing on the fact that they go after anyone who samples from any of the songs they own no matter how minimal and insignificant the sampling is. In fact, "Bridgeport launched nearly 500 counts of copyright infringement against more than 800 artists and labels." Bridgeport is also going after dead artists like Notorious B.I.G. and was able to recently cash in on his album Ready to Die, which is over a decade old, due to the illegal sampling that was on it. This is a direct result of hip hop booming within the last decade, which is sad because they are able to capitalize off an industry norm. This article shows the depth to which Bridgeport Music has gone in order to obtain more money, and with this many cases, is instrumental in the possible demise of rap music.

This article also brings up an interesting point of view in that, up until now I have written about Bridgeport being a money-grubbing corporation, but it could also be construed that its doing older artists justice by giving them their due off from today's popular songs. Though they might get some recognition from the lawsuits, Bridgeport ultimately keeps all of the money, so older artists don't really receive what they should. It also brings up a good point in that, thanks to Bridgeport's case against Dimension, many popular albums of the past would not be able to be created today, such as Public Enemy's, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. This supports the theory that as copyright law regarding sample continues, more and more restrictions are placed on rap artists.