>> The power cord reference isn’t just to the cord itself, but to how each individual person plays them.

The played chords form a very small unit of time. A full composition by a sampling artist is much longer in duration and does modify the individual unit sounds through many manipulations of processing algorithms as these are strung together.

I understand your point that just as a typical band depends on writers and on tree makers and on many engineers who craft many tools (from tool-making tools all the way down to sound electronics of all sorts), as well as on many other artists for ideas and inspiration, so too does someone who uses samples depend on others, essentially being one layer up to leverage all that came before to create something larger a bit more efficiently.

I understand your point that different people play different roles and can be called different names.

Do you understand the point that the best houses require many diverse contributions from many contributors, who are able to earn a living without relying on monopolies?

One topic we (the techdirt community in general and this article more specifically) are talking about is creating music and supporting creativity and how copyright as it exists today puts up a wall against a lot of great creative expression that otherwise would exist. Copyright bestows one type of monopoly to a single “copywriter” who leverages the work of many others who work hard and are creative in different ways in order for the copywriter to be able to create something. That wall prevents progress, *at least* to the extent this progress would be created by those of us who don’t have billions in the bank and an army of lawyers but who otherwise can create from sampling or from otherwise more easily leveraging existing copyrighted works. Copyright does not stop, generally, a new artistic band from coming around, but it certainly stops many other artists that take bits and pieces of the products of traditional bands in order to make their artistic contributions.

Recognizing that not all sampling is the same, many people (including researchers) believe that some degree of more limited copyright might be useful or at least form an acceptable compromise among all the current stakeholders; however, techdirt and others do try to make the case that in the Internet world copyright in many forms (and certainly as it exists today) gets in the way more than it helps.

It might be useful to go into the case studies section of techdirt to see how many groups have embraced “piracy” of their own works in order to grow their market and incomes significantly. Many have also formally embraced “piracy” via many types of zero royalty and near zero restriction society-friendly copyright licenses. So these are artists and writers who have figured out ways where dropping restrictions, even without reciprocation from most others, helps them today. At a minimum, most of these people appear to recognize that wholesale piracy makes their works and their reputations spread much farther, increasing their potential for income significantly. With so much information around us competing for our attention, lowering the entry bar much further than traditional copyright restrictions helps most creative authors. Digital information is extremely cheap (with some of the costs picked up by the end user and other distributors) so you can give away freebies on a tiny budget ad infinitum just about.