Copyright infringement extra credit- Jaron Watts

Ben Franzen was a guest lecturer on November 5. The purpose of Franzen’s visit was to talk about copyrighting. Franzen works primarily with the hip hop genre, and spoke about his experiences with such acts such as De La Soul, Cee-Lo Green, and Chuck D. One thing he mentioned during his talk is how De La Soul was sued for not getting clearance to sample from The Turtles. This was one of the first groups to be sued for copyrighting. De La Soul was eventually sued and their career suffered a massive blow. He also mentioned that even if someone was to change one note of another’s song or sound, it would be considered copyright infringement and it could result in a lawsuit. He went on to say that people believe that they may own the sound due to changing it around, but that’s not the case. NWA, a popular rap group from the late 80’s-early 90’s have been hesitant about allowing their music to be sampled by others. Franzen came up with a film about the nature of copyrighting entitled, Copyright Criminals. The trailer for the film can be found on copyrightcriminals.com.