Suffering of artist

This week we watched a PBS documentary called  “Copyright Criminal” and it was one of the most interesting documentaries, I have watched and it was based on privacy and how individual takes the work of others without permission. This isn’t a surprise to us because we all do it intentional or unintentionally. In this documentary we heard many mixed music that are more interesting then the original music itself. Music has changed ever since the late 90s and it has been evolving with new music such as Hip Hop. Many hip-hop albums depended on samples to provide their rhythmic backbone. Artist and people who listen to music that aren’t sampled view sampling as cheap theft and would sue these individual for copyright. Technologies have advanced so much in our century that we can make great things. We can take a sound and make it into something that is great than what it was before. Artists are using these technologies to become a greater artist than they are and but when they are not careful. They become the victims of plagiarism.

One of my favorite Hip Hop artists is G-dragon (Kwon Ji Yong). He is a member of a Korean group called Big Bang and in August 18 2009 he released a solo album called Heartbreaker after few days he was questioned for plagiarism of the song. G-dragon’s heartbreaker sounded similar to Flo Rida’s ‘Right Round’ and G-dragon was going to be sued for copyright issue. The issue was resolved when the company in Korea that holds 50% to the copyright of the song ‘Right Round’ stated that the song Heartbreaker in whole does not sound like it was plagiarized.  The person in charged stated “We do not know if there is a part to the rap which sounds similar, and the climax and highlight to the song is different also. Also the melody to both songs is different.” Though this issue was resolved it became a big deal to the Korean community concerning copyright issue especially when another country is pointing the finger at them.  http://minsarang.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/news-plagiarism-by-gdragons-‘heartbreaker’-confirmed/.  When I personally listened to both the songs they sound nothing similar. This is one of the many cases out there which all artist face. Like they say everything come with a price and artist are one of the career field where they have to deal with plagiarism.

             In conclusion sampling shouldn't be illegal and artist in the hip hop world should be given the freedom to create new music out of the old ones and copyright issue should not rise every time one music sounds similar to another because if this keeps happening artists will be afraid to create new music and the hip hop world will slowly fade away due to fear. Here are the two videos that I have talked about in my example and you can judge for yourself if it was plagiarism or not.