After reading the material and watching the video’s for this week, I’ve come to realize that it’s all about the money. When we look at sampling music we see that everything made now is pretty much a sample of something from a much earlier time. I felt like the only people who honestly cared about their stuff being sampled were the record companies that wanted to fatten their own pockets. With all the artists in “Copyright Criminals” it seemed that even when the artists themselves didn’t like that things were sampled they felt that there was nothing wrong with it as long as they got some sort of recognition. I feel that this is the right stance to take. Instead of prohibiting the use of samples, the artists using the samples should simply acknowledge the artist who’s music they are using. I don’t understand why they do not just make a website with credits of who they have sampled and just update it as others want credit. I also don’t understand how you can copyright and claim that something altered significantly is your work to begin with. I can see how the “amen break” is recognizable but a simple note or chord that is sampled cannot be claimed as one individual’s property.

The readings for this week covered a bunch of things about infringement of copyrights and “fair use”. It seems to me that as long as you are not trying to profit from your use of property, then you should be fine as long as you give credit and are willing to take it down if asked. The biggest surprise to me is how long things are copyrighted for. Seventy years after the author dies. That is ridiculous.