Was Foucault a plagiarist? Hip-hopsampling and academic citation
When reading this all that came to mind was the legal
battle between Beyoncé and the family of Messy Mya. According to Forbes, “Beyoncé has asked the court to dismiss the
lawsuit against her, claiming that her use of Messy Mya’s YouTube clips in her
“Formation” video is protected by the fair use doctrine.” Beyoncé and her
producers argue that they took 10 seconds of the YouTube star’s clips and
repurposed that clip to create a new piece and serve as a different purpose
than originally created. “Barre’s estate (primarily Mya’s sister) is suing
Queen Bey for royalties, and Sony Music and Jay Z are also named in the suit.
Mya’s sister is also seeking proper credit “as a writer, composer, producer and
performer" for her brother. New Orleans artist Messy Mya was known for his
music and YouTube following before he was tragically murdered in 2010.” Beyoncé
could argue fair use as she was simply sampling the voice of Mya noting the
song and sampling are making a political statement. “The "Formation"
video starts off with images such as a car immersed in water evoking Hurricane
Katrina and portrays other Southern (think Nola) settings throughout. "Section
107 of the Copyright Act provides the statutory framework for determining
whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses—such as
criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples
of activities that may qualify as fair use.” People do it all the time and have
been doing it for some time. People that post things on Facebook, or any other
social platform without copyrights is running the same risk and that is
something that although you never think your video will be a huge sensation, it
is important to take into account.
Your post really intrigues me! To be perfectly honest, I am not a huge Beyonce fan, so I did not know about this whole scandal. It was very interesting to read about in your post, and inspired me to look it up further afterwards. I think you make a great point that many people don't realize the importance of copy right when posting on social media, and they never know what could go "viral" and potentially get them in trouble if they copyright something.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog post because you related the assigned text to a popular copyright example. I also wrote that what people do not usually realize is that because it is extremely simple to post music videos and songs on personal social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter, individuals tend to breach traditional copyright laws by sharing something without properly noting that it is not theirs. Most of the time, I do not even realize the risk that I am putting myself in. I thought your post was insightful. Great work!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great example you used comparing Beyoncé’s scenario with Hess’ article. However, you stated that people post things on Facebook without copyright and that is running the same risk but I don’t necessarily agree. Beyoncé is a world sensation and knows that her videos ill reach millions of views. Hip hop sampling does not require citations, but after reading Hess’ article I would have to say I think they should cite where they sample from even if they are creating new pieces of work. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed what you wrote in this post because I love music so much that I actually was following this case when it was happening in real time. Hip hop music sampling has been around forever so I was on Beyonce’s side because I think she did a very good job of getting peoples attention. In my opinion it seems that Mya’s sister was just looking for a cash out instead of justice for her brother like she was claiming to do so. Formation caused headlines around the world and thats exactly what Beyonce wanted. Wether it was copyright or not I do not think that Beyonce should be held accountable when something so big came to light because of it.
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