NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW Volume 84 | Number 2 Article 5 1-1-2006 From J.C. Bach to Hip Hop: Musical Borrowing, Copyright and Cultural Context Olufunmilayo B. Arewa Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/nclr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Olufunmilayo B. Arewa, From J.C. Bach to Hip Hop: Musical Borrowing, Copyright and Cultural Context, 84 N.C. L. Rev. 547 (2006). Available at: http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/nclr/vol84/iss2/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in North Carolina Law Review by an authorized administrator of Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FROM J.C. BACH TO HIP HOP: MUSICAL BORROWING, COPYRIGHT AND CULTURAL CONTEXT OLUFUNMILAYO B. AREWA* Musical borrowing is a pervasive aspect of musical creation in all genres and all periods. Copyright doctrine does not adequately reflect the reality of such borrowing. Instead, copyright doctrine incorporates notions of Romantic authorship that assume independent and autonomous authorship and even genius in the creation of original musical works. This individualistic and autonomous vision of musical authorship, which is central to copyright law, has deemphasized the importance and continuity of musical borrowing practices generally. The tension between conceptions of musical production and actual music practice is particularly highlighted in the case of hip hop music, which is now the second most popular type of music in the United States and an important musical and cultural force globally. The advent of hip hop has raised serious copyright law concern as a result of sampling, which is a form of musical borrowing that involves the use of pieces of pre-existing recorded music within hip hop works. Courts have held sampling to constitute copyright infringement. The pervasive nature of borrowing in music suggests that more careful consideration needs to be given to the extent to which copying and borrowing have been, and can be, a source of innovation within music. Existing copyright frameworks need to * Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Georgia School of Law (Fall 2005); Assistant Professor, Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Email: [email protected]. A.B., Harvard College, M.A., Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley (Anthropology), A.M., University of Michigan (Applied Economics), J.D., Harvard Law School. For their helpful comments, I am indebted to Julie Cohen, Bertis Downs, Jonathan Entin, Paul Heald, Thomas Joo, Nancy Kim, Andrew Morriss, Craig Nard and participants at workshops at Case Western Reserve University School of Law and Michigan State University School of Law. This Article would not have been possible without the able research assistance of Yuni Ahn and Justin Morocco. I gratefully acknowledge Case Western Reserve University School of Law's support for this research. I want to thank Timothy Goodson and the other members of the North Carolina Law Review for their excellent advice and suggestions during the editing process. © 2006 by Olufunmilayo B. Arewa. NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 84 recognize and incorporate musical borrowing by developing commercial practices and liability rule-based legal structures for music that uses existing works in its creation. INTRO D U CTION ......................................................................................550 1. THE CONSTRUCTION OF MUSIC COPYRIGHT: SAMPLING, POSTMODERNITY AND LEGAL REPRESENTATIONS OF M USICAL BORROW ING ...............................................................552 A. Copyright, Music and Changing Technology .....................552 B. From Bach v. Longman to Bridgeport: Music Copyright and Hip Hop Music ....................555 1. The Inexact Fit of Copyright for Music .......................555 2. Hip Hop as Musical, Cultural and Business Phenom enon ....................................................................558 3. Copyright Doctrine and Hip Hop Music: Situating Hip Hop in Copyright Law ............................................562 a. Hip Hop Musical ProductionPractices and C opyright.................................................................... 562 b. Originality, Copyrightabilityand Hip Hop M usic ..........................................................................565 c. Hip Hop Music and Copyright Infringement .........569 d. Hip Hop Music and the Scope of Derivative W orks ..........................................................................571 e. Copyright and PermissibleBorrowings .................. 573 (1) De M inimis Copying .........................................573 (2) Fair Use and Transformative Borrowings ......576 C. Dichotomiesand Continuities: Representing the "Other" in Contemporary Music Copyright Law ..............579 1. Creativity Versus Copying: Musical Theft as a Core Aspect of Representations of Hip Hop Music... 579 2. Differences and Hierarchies: Framing Hip Hop M usical Practice ..............................................................582 II. MUSICAL COMPOSITION AND MUSICAL BORROWING: MUSICAL AUTHORSHIP IN HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL P ER SPECTIV E ...............................................................................586 A. Canonic ClassicalMusic: The HistoricalSpecificity of Visions of Musical Composition.......................................... 586 1. Sacralization and Hierarchies of Taste: Aesthetic Value and Musical Composition ...................................588 a. Copyright, Composers and Deification................... 588 2006] FROM J.C. BACH TO HIP HOP b. Sacralizationand Musical Borrowing: The Historicaland Cultural Specificity of Visions of A uthorship .................................................................590 c. Hierarchiesof Taste, Sacralizationand the Creation of Musical Canons..................................... 591 2. Inventions and Themes: Historicism and the Development of the Classical Canon ........................... 593 3. Improvisation and Musical Borrowing in the C lassical Tradition .......................................................... 601 a. Nature and Types of Musical Borrowing................ 601 b. Borrowing,Improvisation and Commercial Interests....................................................................... 607 B. Musical Borrowing in PopularMusic Traditions.............. 612 1. Borrowing and Nineteenth Century Popular Music... 612 a. Borrowingsfrom Opera ........................................... 613 b. Other Nineteenth Century Borrowings.................... 614 2. Borrowing and Twentieth Century Popular Music ..... 615 a. Jazz, Blues and Other Forms ................................... 615 b. Rock and Roll and Other Twentieth Century B orrowings ................................................................. 616 C. Composition and Musical Practicein an African American Tradition: CulturalAssumptions and M usical A uthorship .............................................................. 619 1. Discussing African American Musical Forms: Discourses of Difference ................................................ 619 2. Creativity in Certain African American Music and Cultural Form s ................................................................ 622 a. Repetition and Revision: Core Features of One African American Aesthetic ..................................... 623 b. African American CulturalProduction and Copyright Standards: Recontextualizing Hip Hop Musical Practices.............................................. 624 3. The Social Roles and Social Meanings of Music: Context, Living Traditions and Museum Traditions.. 628 III. COPYRIGHT, LIABILITY RULES AND HIP HOP MusIc ........... 629 A. Sampling as an Important Feature of Hip Hop ................. 630 B. Hip Hop and the Goals of Copyright: Control and Compensation in Musical Works ........................................ 631 C. Hip Hop, Music Industry Practicesand Copyright: Musical Borrowing and Liability Rules .............................. 634 1. Music Industry Licensing Practices .............................. 634 2. Liability Rule Frameworks for Hip Hop ..................... 638 NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 84 3. Potential Approaches to a Hip Hop Sampling Copyright Fram ework .................................................... 641 C O N CLU SIO N ........................................................................................... 644 INTRODUCTION What do Beethoven and Public Enemy have in common? Both have been enormously popular performers and composers.' Both are credited with fundamentally transforming music composition and performance during their respective times.' Both have copied and incorporated existing works of their own or others into their own works.3 As such, Beethoven and Public Enemy illustrate the continuity of musical borrowing. This continuity and the importance of musical borrowing remain largely unacknowledged by the legal commentary and unreflected in copyright law. Musical borrowing, which includes a range of practices from copying to more subtle influences, is a pervasive aspect of musical production.4 Current copyright doctrine does not adequately reflect the teality of musical borrowing. Existing copyright structures are based on a vision of musical authorship that is both historically and culturally specific. This vision has led to representations of musical authorship in the legal sphere that do not adequately consider the ways in which musical