Curation Is The Cure

Copyrights, sampling, mash-ups, riffing, cover songs, and everything in between within the music industry is a mess when it comes to legal ramifications, but why does it have to be this way?  Consider this:  A photographer who makes a living taking beautiful photographs of architecture.  He owns those photos despite the fact that the architect as well as the planning and construction crews who created the subject of photographer’s work do not see a single penny from the photographer’s earnings.  All that is required is a simple attribution, if at all.  Why can’t music be this way?  If you use another’s work and it is repurposed for your own artistry and musical project, I strongly believe that all that should be in order is a simple curation mentioning who the original artist was and have the matter end there.  Artists who are creating music for the right reasons and genuinely do it with passion and with enthusiasm are not going to bring lawsuits and copyright infringement into the picture so long as they are credited appropriately in a footnote somewhere.  The amount of effort being put into copyright infringement cases, determining origination of samples used in works, and determining the differences between similar works is absurd and can be put towards innovation and greater causes.  Let’s all remember why people would want to use others’ music in their own: It’s not to voluntarily cause harm to the original artist or even attempt to pass it off as their own, but simply put:

“imitation is the sincerest [form] of flattery.”

Quote originally by Charles Caleb Colton, (1780 – 1832)