Copyright Criminals

The documentary takes up sampling. Sampling means using a piece of an older recording inside a new one. Hip hop has been doing it for more than thirty years. The film begins by telling how the genre started. Music coming off the streets of New York grows. In the end it turns into a multibillion dollar industry. That growth brings a new question. Whose is the piece that was taken. It used to be called a borrowed melody. Once lawyers and record companies got involved the name changed. Now it is called copyright infringement. Founding figures of the genre speak in the film. Musicians of the newer generation give their views as well. Chuck D and George Clinton speak in the sixty five minute documentary, an American production Benjamin Franzen and Kembrew McLeod finished in 2009.