Book Review: Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling

Abstract

Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola Creative License: Law and Culture of Digital Sampling. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011. 325 pp.Due to Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (CTEA), United States is one of sixty-seven nations to protect copyright for author's life plus seventy years-the longest term ever-or for ninety-five years for works anonymous or made for hire. Still, any causal relationship between term of protection and proliferation of original works of authorship (the U.S. Copyright Office label) has never been established, even though positive correlation may be evident, for example, in rising number of book titles (more than 347,000 in 2011, according to market research firm Bowker).1McLeod and DiCola's well-crafted book, which examines intersections of with copyright law, explains why causal relationship simply may not exist.Digital sampling, or using snippets of existing recordings in new recordings, is subject of this elegant book, whose authors have succeeded in creating a richer text- collage of words that both describes and enacts technique of (p. 18). If digital sampling is phenomenon in U.S. music (or recording) industry, then it should evoke keen interest in students of not only copyright but also contemporary American musicology.The book is based on interviews of more than one hundred stakeholders of recording industry, including musicians who have sampled or been sampled (including Saul Williams), music executives and lawyers (including Mia Garlick), clearance professionals (including Pat Shanahan), public interest group representatives (including Brian Zisk), music historians (including Greg Tate), musicologists (including Joanna Demers), journalists (including JeffChang), and law professors (including Lawrence Lessig). A sublime chapter titled The Sample Clearance System: How It Works (and How It Breaks Down) describes business of clearing samples, including types of negotiation, structure and terms of sample licenses, musician may navigate system, benefits of licensing, expenses in sample clearance, relationships, timing difficulties and bureaucracies in sample clearances, and obstacles to mash-ups such as gatekeepers and distributors. In following chapter, authors analyze implications of those issues for creativity, including superb commentary on licensing costs.The authors find that clearly, the sample licensing and collage-based forms of creativity are in conflict (p. 17), and they state their goal is to figure out how to properly fix sample clearance system (p. …