Copyright Criminals Review

Can you own a sound? This is the question that the documentary "Copyright Criminals" explores with surprising insight and care. The film, directed by Benjamin Franzen, introduces viewers to the concept of "sampling" music. Sampling is the act of taking sound clips from previously recorded songs and repurposing them. Sampling has been a hugely controversial practice in the music industry and is a complicated problem without any easy answers. This divisive and complicated issue is one that could lend itself well to a fascinating and thought-provoking documentary, but this film isn't quite there.

"Copyright Criminals" is laid out in the standard documentary format of archival footage and talking heads. Nothing earth-shattering, but it gets the job done. The most exciting aspect of the visual storytelling is the use of split and overlapping images to illustrate the concept of sampling. It's entertaining to see the old footage and the dissonance between their sources, but the do filmmakers rely very heavily on this gimmick.

Throughout the course of the story we meet quite a few characters on both sides of the sampling controversy. On one side of the issue sit lawyers and producers, people who believe that songs should be heard in their entirety and not mined for parts to create new music. They see sampling as an easy way out of having to learn an instrument or find band members. On the other side of the issues, we meet DJs who wax poetic about sampling. One especially enthused musician describes sampling as the ability to assemble a dream band and play with them, sounding a lot like someone talking about a fantasy football team. These talking heads are informative but they don't give the story much heart.

But then we meet Clyde Stubblefield, a man who has been strongly affected by sampling and who is really the soul of the story. Stubblefield, known by many as "The Funky Drummer" was a drummer in James Brown's classic band and is widely considered the most sampled musician on earth. There is something touching and oddly tragic about Stubblefield, an old man who has been left in the dust by technology and wildly taken advantage of because of it. Stubblefield's beats and solos have been used hundreds, if not thousands of times by DJs worldwide, yet Stubblefield hasn't seen a penny from it. But even more powerful than that is Stubblefield's statement that he doesn't care. He doesn't want the money, no, he just wants to be recognized for his music.

"Copyright Criminals" is able to show many sides to an issue without becoming judgmental, something fewer and fewer documentaries can really pull off. It ends without the requisite "call to action" but this might serve to make the point even stronger. There's no simple way out from this problem and the destructive cycle of exploitation, followed closely by litigation, seems intent on continuing.