GCBC is an independent documentary produced by Rosforth discussing the current issues and structures of the copyright concept. The film employs the internet as its primary form of advertisement and distribution and is available for free download on The Pirate Bay. After watching a rash of new independent documentaries, including Soulwax’s Part of the Weekend Never Dies, Justice’s A Cross the Universe, and 2007’s Helvetica, GCBC is yet another smash hit on the edge of cultural calamity that will most likely result in some new legislation in the next 4 years.

GCBC partly follows artist, Girl Talk, a leader in sample mixing and on the fine line of copyright infringement. It’s difficult to discern whether remixing samples construes plagiarism of the original artists’ materials considering the context, style, and overall meaning of the material is often completely different than the original. Girl Talk explains that remixing the most minimal of samples isn’t any different than an artist hearing a guitar riff and playing it a little different in his or her own song which has been going on for ages. In my graphic design experience, since I have not developed a solid personal style that guides all of my work, a lot of my creations are simply emulations of things I hear or see on the internet or in magazines, and strictly speaking my emulations probably infringe on copyright rules sometimes.

Copyright isn’t a new concept, but has grown and grown as the size of the government, the recording, the movie, and the publishing industries grew. Copyright during the period of the founding fathers was meant to protect the creator’s intentions and not interfere with production and distribution of the intent, and in a society of creative curious people such as America ideas were meant to be shared and distributed freely while strict copies were meant to be enforced against. For example, from the early 1800s the entire world took part in scientific and artistic events called the World Fair where all fields of science, music, art, and design were available for display not just by learned professionals and professors, but the entire public. During World Fairs information was exchanged, ideas from every corner of the globe, and technology from industries and public scientists flowed freely, all the while copyrights banned the duplication of any of the ideas without interfering with the flow of information. During World Fairs people and governments competed to show who was most advanced, but also realised that without sharing there would be few true breakthroughs. As late as World War 2, countries shared not just money, but great scientists to create technologies that were dreams fifty years before including medicines, food packaging, transportation systems, and atomic energy. Not surprisingly with the growth of governments and private industries the concept of the World Fair has disappeared and no longer do companies and governments freely exchange technological breakthroughs. In fact entrance to industry specific conventions is closely monitored with fears that outsiders will steal ideas. Competition led to greater creativity and with that greater creativity we have learned greater ways to shut each other out.

But there is one last hope: the internet. Today the World Fair is the internet and ideas of every kind continuously flow freely (and not so freely sometimes) from country to country, person to person. Copyright protects people blatantly copying your ideas and intentions, and recently protects even little scraps of your ideas and intentions. But artists know that without artists before them to emulate they wouldn’t be where they are now. Picasso ripped off every major artist before him before creating his own style and he was far from the originator of hist most famous style cubism. Musicians like Santogold wouldn’t be famous singers without the jazz singers of the 60s, soul singers of the 70s, hip-hop artists of the 80s, and garage bands of the 90s. Copyright is important but if we inspect who has been making the most noise about it and receiving the most benefit from how it has existed, we will see that the artists aren’t the loudest copyright advocates.

In fact most music contracts result in the musicians receiving only a tiny percentage of their actual sales with a huge chunk being taken by the labels and another large chunk being taken by the retailers. Production of music is almost nothing, bits of plastic and metal in cds or else if bought online bits of data with no physical costs except server space and infrastructure maintenance. What most people don’t realise is musicians with major labels don’t even own their own creations. Label deals result in the label owning the intellectual property created by the artists while the artists only ownership is a royalty, or piece of paper saying that they get a percentage of what the label makes on the label’s property in thanks to them for doing all the creative work. Isn’t it strange if someone steals an album that the artist doesn’t actually have something stolen from them but the label does.

Copyright is important and needs to exist, but in terms of art and ideas, it needs to be updated to accommodate the free flow of ideas known as the internet. GCBC brings up a few good points and ideas to rectify some of the problems with copyright law. Primarily, since distribution has flowed away from monopolistic forces such as record labels and movie studios that copyright and intellectual ownership should return back to the creators. The band Mindless Self Indulgence retains ownership of all its songs and licenses its music to labels instead of the other way around, and the band has embraced the internet as it’s primary source of distribution. Another more powerful alternative to piracy and electronic music transfer is distribution through vinyl. There’s a lot to be said about the sound and feel of vinyl and it’s been used extensively in the area of electronic music for years. Vinyl isn’t copyable and true fans of a band’s music will buy there vinyl as collector’s items even if they are willing to pirate the albums for free from the internet. The final solution is to embrace the idea of touring and live albums. As displayed in the Brazil section of GCBC, live albums are the important sales for artists and connect the artists with their fan base while album releases are simply forms of distribution to get the buzz out for new music. Linking live events with album sales creates an all important bond between an artist and the fans and also will cut out a lot of bands that truely lack talent in reality, mainly mainstream pop acts.