Copyright, right? or Wrong?

In 2004, producer Danger Mouse released The Grey Album, employing an a capella version of rapper Jay Z’s The Black Album along with instrumentals lifted without authorization from The Beatles famous The White Album. Entertainment Weekly called it their album of the year. EMI, copyright holders of The Beatles White Album called it “illegal”.

The release of The Grey Album, complete with a cease and desist by EMI, brought back to the forefront the question of what is legal and fair in the often-murky waters of source sampling in this age of remixes and mashups. The question of right and wrong often comes down to intent. With the intent of education or if a posting was fair use (a minor argument can be made that the Jay Z/Beatle collaboration borders on parody), the use of sampling without copyright seems appropriate.

It should also be noted that though copyrighted, Jay Z’s The Black Album was released for the specific purpose of encouraging mashups and remixes. In addition, Danger Mouse green-lighted the free downloads on 170 sites on what came to be known as “Grey Tuesday.” Giving away a sampled piece, however, is no less illegal, especially if it hurts the commercial value of the property.

The question of Danger Mouse’s intent, however, has to be interpreted as commercial more so than artistic, incidental, or educational. For all of the talk about the legacy of sampling in hip-hop (which is considerable), the bottom line is that Danger Mouse wished to promote his career (which would result in financial dividends down the line) as much as he wanted to make an artistic statement. Coupled with the fact that the Beatles’s samples were clearly off-limits and this is a no-brainer.