Why Doesn't Girl Talk Allow Commercial Use?

from the go-big-or-go-home dept

Legal trouble for Girl Talk -- an artist named Greg Gillis who released a "mash up" album using the pay what you want model -- is almost inevitable, but the situation gets even more interesting when you consider how the music is licensed. Girl Talk uses a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license for Feed the Animals, even though the songs on the album were made by using hundreds samples from other artists. Gillis claims his songs are fair use on the basis of being transformative and because the clips used are very short.

Aside from potential legal claims over the license if the fair use defense fails, why would Gillis -- an artist making commercial use of samples from others -- put a noncommercial restriction on his work? It seems a bit hypocritical. Granted, he does claim that "the CC license does not interfere with the rights you have under the fair use doctrine, which gives you permission to make certain uses of the work even for commercial purposes," but is the noncommercial restriction for other uses really necessary?

First of all, as Mike Masnick pointed out in his critique of a noncommercial copyright, the distinction between commercial and noncommercial use is extremely blurry. Equally blurry in this case is the distinction between transformative and non-transformative use. At what point exactly does a derivative work become transformative? But, more importantly, Mike asks "if someone else is able to do something commercially useful with my content, why should that be a problem?" Girl Talk ought to be a perfect example of this, yet Gillis seems to deliberately limit the possibilities through his choice of license.

Why attempt to limit the positive externalities? Maybe some of the artists sampled on the Girl Talk album will really like a song their music appears in and want to include it somehow on a release of their own, make use of it on their website, etc. Should those artists then be required to pay for the use of a song which includes samples of their own music? Maybe, but it seems like respecting "upstream" would help an artist like Gillis maintain a better relationship with the artists from which he's sampling.

Furthermore, what about people who might do something with the album that's potentially commercially useful for Girl Talk? For example, if someone were to make an interesting remix or video using Girl Talk's music , not only would they be required to refrain from commercial use themselves (unless it was fair use), but Gillis would require their permission to make use of it himself. If he had used a copyleft license like the Creative Commons Attibution-Share Alike, both he and any artists making derivative works would have the ability to monetize their efforts. Instead, derivatives are relegated to the realm of the amateur because, with a noncommercial license, the barriers of a permission culture are still intact for artists trying to make a living from their work. One would hope that Greg Gillis, of all artists, might realize the benefits of removing these barriers, especially on commercial use.

Blaise Alleyne is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Blaise Alleyne and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Who Will Be The First To Sue Girl Talk Over Music Samples?

from the taking-bets? dept

A few weeks back when we mentioned that the musical act Girl Talk was releasing a new album using the pay what you want model, one element we didn't dwell on was the fact that Girl Talk's genre might be best described as "mash up music." That is, Greg Gillis, the guy who is Girl Talk, takes samples from tons of songs and mixes them together to create something totally new. While there may be some who disagree, listening to Girl Talk, I find it difficult to believe that Gillis is any less of a musician than the musicians he samples -- he's just playing a different kind of instrument.

But there's a big question -- whether or not Girl Talk's albums are legal or are they basically massive copyright infringement cases. If Gillis were to actually go around licensing all the snippets he samples, such an album would be impossible to make -- showing (yet again) how copyright would act as disincentive for creation rather than incentive. So far Gillis hasn't actually been sued, though that seems unlikely to last. On the positive side, some big name musicians interviewed in a recent Wall Street Journal article about Girl Talk sound much more honored than litigious to be included on a Girl Talk album. However, with over 300 samples used on the album, there's almost certainly going to be a few who get upset. The article, for example, suggests that the woman in charge of the copyright for the band the Guess Who is planning to go after Girl Talk, noting that: "We'll chase it down. What more can you do?" Well, actually, there's plenty more that you can do -- such as recognizing that no one who hears the music on Girl Talk is going to see that as a replacement to the Guess Who's album -- and, if anything, it might entice new fans to the original.

But, eventually a legal battle is going to pop up -- and while Gillis and his label are banking on "fair use" claims to protect them, the history of court cases on this particular question have shown the courts (wrongly) seem to count nearly any sample, no matter how minor to require a license. This has created a small industry of "sample trolls" getting the rights to various songs (often via very questionable means) and then suing anyone who samples just a few notes from it. It seems quite likely that sooner or later someone is going to go after Gillis for this. And, while it's nice that some artists are honored by Gillis's use of their music, that probably won't stop others from suing. Luckily, Gillis has at least one big supporter in Congress -- and perhaps a lawsuit against him will help bring this issue to the attention of lawmakers.

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