Title

Toward a “New School” Licensing Regime for Digital Sampling: Disclosure, Coding, and Click-Through

Document Type

Article

Comments

"The Nathan Burkan Memorial Corporation Prize." and "The Edgar M. Cullen Prize."

Abstract

Under most circumstances, music writer Kevin Nottingham would be exhilarated to open his MySpace inbox and find a message from Madlib, a Los Angeles-based producer-rapper whose off-kilter beats – built on some of music’s most obscure sonic scraps – are the object of envy, scrutiny, and emulation by legions of independent hiphop fans. A hip-hop enthusiast with a particular interest in production techniques and digital sampling, Nottingham was the founder, editor-in-chief, and staff of KevinNottingham.com, a website dedicated to cataloging, analyzing, and discussing the work of the genre’s leading producers. In addition to regular blog entries, Nottingham’s site featured a wide variety of “sample sets” – compilations of digital versions of the songs sampled by his favorite producers to build their beats. In early March 2008, Nottingham posted one of his more difficult-to-compile sets, which contained the samples from 2004’s Madvillainy.1 The critically acclaimed product of a collaboration between Madlib and rapper MF DOOM, Madvillainy was different from many of the other albums Nottingham had researched before; while the album’s liner notes featured elaborate artwork and extensive lyric sheets, they did not reveal its samples. So, Nottingham had to start digging, resorting to his own knowledge and hints from his fellow fans to piece together the album’s sources.

Date of Authorship for this Version

Spring 2009

Keywords

Copyright and Intellectual Property Law