Copyright Criminals was just terrific! the film was moving and compelling. also? the music was so great! I really appreciated how vibrantly the voices of the interviewed artists came through and how the filmmakers used these to develop a complex argument.
it was impossible not to think about the post on Copycense the other day about Girl Talk and race/class issues while watching the film and then, more acutely, during the Q&A after the film. It was interesting to me that in the post-film discussion Dave Allen seemed reluctant to let the conversation come around explicitly to questions of race and class. It seems undeniable to me that Gregg Gillis’s status as a white, middle-class dude loved by a lot of other white, middle-class dudes is a factor in the whole “why hasn’t girl talk been sued/issued cease-and-desists/whatever?” question. it’s obviously not the ONLY factor but it’s equally obviously a factor. and this is deeply problematic for a number of reasons – most of which are addressed eloquently in the Copycense editorial so I’ll leave that for now.
The filmmaker, Kembrew McLeod, took a little heat during the discussion/Q&A about what wasn’t included in the film, specifically much discussion of the actual law, and for not being more explicit about the “message” of the film. I actually think both of those things were real strengths of the movie. By skipping the law lesson and producing a film rich with beats and stories, the filmmakers have managed to make a movie about intellectual property that is never boring, never pedantic. Letting the music and musicians tell the story connects us to the way that IP policy directly shapes the creative process instead of just telling us about it. And a side effect of that is that we’re left a little unsettled at the end because we don’t have a voice-over telling us what to think. Instead we see these questions of appropriation, collage, etc as the complex questions they really are. I really can hardly wait to see the final cut of the film, which McLeod says will draw even more upon the collage aesthetic to tell this story.
Best moment? I’ve got to vote for the cut to Chuck D.’s response to Judge Duffy’s “Thou shalt not steal” verdict in the Biz Markie case-
“How country is that?”
indeed.
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