Introduction to Illegal Art

Illegal art techniques

Unauthorized•Sampling•Remixing•Collaging

Likely theoretical approaches

•Reproduction•Simulation•Appropriation•Intertextuality•Deconstruction•Recontextualization•Revitalization•Revaluation•etc.

Copyrights / Intellectual Property

Usually thought of in:•pop – cultural contexts

– ‘mechanical rights’– ‘publishing rights’– Fair use– Public Domain

•Remember however about corporate contexts

– trademarks– patents– trade secrets

DADA knows everything. DADA spits everything out.

•Anti-art•Anti-aesthetics

•‘How does one achieve eternal bliss? By saying dada. How does one become famous? By saying dada. With a noble gesture and delicate propriety. Till one goes crazy. Till one loses consciousness. How can one get rid of everything that smacks of journalism, worms, everything nice and right, blinkered, moralistic, europeanised, enervated? By saying dada.’ (Hugo Ball)

•‘‘The Dada philosophy is the sickest, most paralyzing and most destructive thing that has ever originated from the brain of man.’’ (American Art News, 1918)

Marcel Duchamp (1887 – 1968)

• ‘Nude Descending a Staircase’ (1912)

Marcel Duchamp (1887 – 1968)

•‘Nude Descending a Staircase’ (1912)•‘Fountain’ (1917)

Marcel Duchamp (1887 – 1968)

•‘Nude Descending a Staircase’ (1912)•‘Fountain’ (1917)•‘L.H.O.O.Q.’ (1919)

Marcel Duchamp (1887 – 1968)

•‘Nude Descending a Staircase’ (1912)•‘Fountain’ (1917)•‘L.H.O.O.Q.’ (1919)

–Elle a chaud au cul.

And then he shaved her...

Diego Velazquez (1599 – 1660)

•Las Meninas (1656)

Jan Van Eyck (1385 – 1441)

•Arnolfini Portrait (1434)

Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973)

•1957 – Picasso paints 58 versions of Las Meninas

Richard Hamilton (b. 1922)

•Picasso’s Meninas (1973)

DADA inspirations

•Surrealism•Pop-Art

Jasper Johns (b. 1930)

…almost all of Jasper Johns‘ images incorporate art history, art-making, found images, and references to his earlier works and experiences...

-Wide use of ‘found materials’-‘Neo-Dadaist’?

Jasper Johns (b. 1930)

•Flag (1954)

Jasper Johns (b. 1930)

•Flag (1954)•The Perilous Night (1982)

John Cage (1912 - 1992)

•music: "a purposeless play" which is "an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we're living".

•Considered using of a phonograph as a musical instrument

John Cage - aleatory music

•used I Ching in his music in order to provide a framework for his uses of chance

•Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (1951) written for twelve radio receivers

•4’33 (1952)

4’33

•4’33 (1952)• Erwin Schulhoff Fünf

Pittoresken (1919)

Classical Music Rip-Offs

•The concept of ‘originality’ - Romanticism

Notable rip-offs among hundreds of others:•Igor Stravinsky•Luciano Berio•Dmitri Shostakovich

4’33 ripped-off

•2002 - Mike Batt faces charges of plagiarism filed against him by the estate of John Cage.

–"A Minute's Silence" credited to ‘Batt / Cage’

•‘’My piece is much a better silent piece. I have been able to say in one minute what Cage could only say in four minutes and 33 seconds’’. . . "My silence is original silence, not a quotation from his silence.”

•Settled without a trial

Popular music rip-offs

•The list goes on forever…

• Dazed and Confused (1969)– Led Zeppelin

• Dazed and Confused (1967)– Jake Holmes

Musique concrète

•Not to be confused with aleatory music or ‘electronic music’ (although sometimes a common name for the two is used: ‘electroacoustic music’)

•Tape manipulations of ‘found sounds’•Pierre Schaeffer

Some works by:•Karlheinz Stockhausen•Edgard Varèse •Luciano Berio•Luigi Nono•Pierre Boulez•Iannis Xenakis•etc

Revolution # 9 (1968)

•On The Beatles’ White Album

•contains sound samples from recordings of

–Ludvig van Beethoven’s

–Jean Sibelius–Numerous

samples from EMI catalog

–Reversed sounds (e.g. ‘Turn me on, dead man’)

The Beatles – White Album (1968)

Jay-Z – The Black Album (2003)

Illegal Art – practical approach

TAKE

Danger Mouse Grey Album

•EMI threatens legal action against Danger Mouse•Virtual sit-ins – Grey Album hosted on hundreds of

websites•Copyright activism•Copyright debate

END RESULT: Millions of copies downloaded

Bittersweet Symphony

The Verve – Bittersweet Symphony (1997)

The Rolling Stones – The Last Time (1965)

Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra – The Last Time

WHO GETS PAID ?

Bittersweet Symphony: who gets paid?

•Credited to Jagger / Richards

•Allen Klein (holder of The Rolling Stones copyrights) – sued and the band settled for 100% of royalties (though they thought it was 50%...)

•‘’This is the best song Jagger and Richards have written in 20 years.” (Richard Ashcroft)

Bittersweet Symphony: who controls it?Used in a Nike commercial

Used in a Vauxhall commercial

Used in a movie sountrack

Copyright – a moral right? The band gets the right to control the publishing of the song back

Illegal Art – ideology / schmuckology

•Plunderphonics–John Oswald (1985) ‘Plunderphonics, or Audio

Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative’ –Lots of records / tapes

Illegal Art, contd.

You may want to check the controversies around Negativland’s EP U2 (1991)

Illegal Art, contd.

Or, you may want to check the controversies around the band KLF (aka The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, aka The JAMS, aka The Timelords) (while KLF stands for Kopyright Liberation Front…)

–3.a.m. Eternal (1991) - top five hit, internationally–Doctorin’ the Tardis (1991) (as The Timelords) –

Britain’s number one hit–1992 BRIT Awards (machine-gunning the

audience…)–http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7CDButf0go8

Illegal Art, contd.

•Mash – up–Girl Talk –Night Ripper

‘Once Again’ (2006)

A Beginner’s GuideCopyrights

Origins of Copyright

•Charter of incorporation by Queen Mary in 1556 and the creation of the Company of Stationers of London (publishers)

•The original Pirates?•Licensing Act of 1662 •1710 - Statute of Anne

1710 - Statute of Anne

–'An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned,'

–Exclusive rights to authors (not publishers)–Rights of consumers–Protection for 28 years – after that work passes into

public domain

Copyright as Preventive Censorhip

•Alexander Pope v. Edmund Currl–Letters from A. Pope to J. Swift - protected–Letters from J. Swift to A. Pope – not protected

•Prince Albert v. Strange and Others

links between copyright and "the right to privacy"

Copyright 'crisis' in Colonial America

•Mercantilist market protection – wide system of patents / charters and licences

•Yet, although Statute of Anne is legally binding – no real copyright protection

•Hence – flourishing publishing yet no creativity

Logic of the American Copyright System

U.S. Constitution "The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the

Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

Early promoters of new copyright system

•Samuel Clemens•Thomas Alva Edison

–New York movie wars–Creation of Hollywood

•John Philip Sousa–Creation of ASCAP

International Copyrights Regime

•1886 - Berne Convention•1995 - Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property

Rights (TRIPS)•2002 - World Intellectual Property Organization

(WIPO) Treaty

American Copyrights Regime

•Mechanical Rights•Publishing Rights•Public Domain•Fair Use•First-Sale Doctrine• (parallel importation)

Fair Use

•Private use (listening, loaning, back-up copies)•How about 'schoolyard piracy'?•How about Peer2Peer?•How about copyprotected CDs?

Copy protected CD's

•Vastly simplifying - most often they contain a 'CDDA section' (Music sectors) and a 'CD-Rom section' (Data sectors)

•CD-Rom and DVD-Rom drives try to access Data sectors first – then the code runs that makes sure no copy can be made

•All these use some form of cryptography

So…Am I a CD or what?

DATA

MUSIC

What makes a CD?

•RED BOOK CD–Guess what… - a patent –Philips holds it that everything that does not

comply to RB CD is not a CD

Problems with 'corrupted CDs'

•Will not play on some equipment (all cd-rom / dvd-rom based players, car stereo, computers)

•You may listen to WMA or MP3 encoded music instead of CDDA, not knowing it

•Unsolicited software may be installed on the computer

•Conflicts with popular wireless devices (ipod)

First – sale doctrine

•Profit is made once – royalties paid once, licences paid once, etc.

•Yet copyrights are still valid once the medium is resold

•Why not be paid every time?

Anti-Circumvention Regulations – U.S.A.

•Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA)–criminalizes production and dissemination of

technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as Digital Rights Management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works and it also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself.

US Digital Millenium Copyright Act

•implements WIPO - with additions•Music and film industry lobbied for laws to make it

illegal to break copy protection schemes.•Even if you tried to do so for an otherwise legitimate

purpose.•Can’t even discuss these schemes

Skylarov case

•Russian programmer, Dimitri Skylarov arrested because his company had put out a program that decrypted Adobe’s encryption scheme for its e-books.

•Was released – but under condition that he testified against his firm.

•His company was eventually found not guilty.

Felten case

•RIAA hired Princeton professor Edward Felten to break a DRM based MP3 alternative called the Secure Digital Music Initiative.

•As he succeeded – he found himself threatened with legal action when he tried to present an academic paper on his findings.

Trusted content

•Protected by DRM and Anti-Circumvention Protections (hence by cryptography)

Scenarios for the future:

•One could play music/movies – but with restrictions–e.g.: Movies might “expire” (become unplayable

after 24 hours)–Music might be unplayable unless you kept up your

subscription payments•Strong restrictions on copying/sharing with others

This changes the 'first sale doctrine' logicThis changes the 'fair use doctrine'

Trusted Computing(in case you wondered why MS Vista is so idiot-proof…)

•MS Palladium / NGSCB- seems that the project was dropped…

•Uses public key cryptography to make large parts of the operating system off-limits to computer users/owners – REMEMBER, you do not BUY the operating system, you licence it

•This makes DRM easier•In extreme cases, might even allow remote deletion of illegal

content on your computer•Two years ago the German government suggested EXACTLY

THAT…

Scenarios for the future, cntd

•What happens to the market sector unwilling to implement DRM?

•What is the status of public domain content protected with DRM?

DRM today

•It seemed that DRM would be key for the future of the digital music / culture market

•It appeared that online music resalers would force all content providers to support and implement DRM (why?) – some did not even ask for permission

•Many content providers opposed this•Many recording artists opposed this

DRM today

•Sony rootkit scandal•Sony estimated that yearly implementation of their DRM and

copyprotection technologies will cost . . . 65% of their annual income

•EMI first to copy protect their whole catalog•EMI first to drop copy protection (Blue Note, Classical Catalog)•Apple (iTunes) first to drop DRM•Seems DRM is dead (as disco)

YET

Anti-Circumvention Regulations – EU

•EU Copyright Directive (InfoSoc Directive)•Unlike Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act,

which only prohibits circumvention of access control measures, InfoSoc Directive also prohibits circumvention of copy protection measures, making it potentially more restrictive. In both DMCA and InfoSoc Directive, production, distribution etc. of equipment used to circumvent both access and copy-protection is prohibited. Under DMCA, a potential user who wants to avail herself of an alleged fair use privilege to crack copy protection (which is not prohibited) would have to do it herself since no equipment would lawfully be marketed for that purpose. Under InfoSoc Directive, this possibility would not be available since circumvention of copy protection is illegal.

•SOPA•PIPA•ACTA

And I did not even start speaking about 'piracy'…

Fair Use

•Personal use–Loaning–Recreating

• Be careful though (girlscouts USA)

•Artistic use–Parody–Satire

• Weird Al Yankovic• 2 Live Crew (Supreme Court Ruling)

Compulsory licensing of publishing rights

•Cover versions•Radio broadcasts

–Once copyrighted material is published republishing cannot be banned

–It requires a fee regulated by copyright statutes

Commercial licensing of mechanical rights

•Prices of many samples go into hundreds of thousands of dollars

•Prince (previously known as the Artist Previously Known as Prince ;-))

–Charges 100% of copyright royalties•Cheaper to ‘replay’ and record a sample than to

acquire it

The End