Good night at Dox last night - we had the Czech premier of Copyright Criminals. I'm totally biased since the head writer of the film, Kembrew McLeod, is a friend of mine, but I really think it's a great intervention on the dialog about the nature of digital creativity and American copyright law. First off, it's extremely MUSICAL, which I remember talking to Kembrew about mostly because it was some kind of nightmare clearing all the vid samples for the montage sequences. There are a maybe a half dozen sequences illustrating the work of specific artists - Clyde Stubblefield, Public Enemy - and specific musical techniques like analog and digital scratching or famous sampling afterlife of "Funky Drummer." Second, it reframes the history of sampling as an artform popularized by black American musicians, which isn't news to anyone who loves music but might be to the people who read Lawrence Lessig or only jumped into the legal debates about appropriation through Illegal Art and/or after Girl Talk. Girl Talk is great party music, but the appropriation of a great sample into a new context has deeper meaning for listeners and creators alike, as was excellently discussed afterwards by my new friend Karl Vesely, who is writing the first Czech language book on the popular music of the Black Altantic (yes!). Then there's the real stories of the chilling effect of copyright law on creativity - De La Soul talking about how label execs sat with them and outlined what artists were in litigation over samples and therefore were offlimits for sampling.

The film is definitely not for those uninitiated in either hip hop or copyright issues, but since Good Copy, Bad Copy and Remix have been around this film builds on, clarifies, and illustrates in a great way that is potentially more useful for those interested in the musical implications of copyright law. Plus, it has the best soundtrack. Win.