The documentary “Copyright Criminals” came out in 2009 and explores the world of sampling – taking pieces of sound from one work and incorporating that sound into another work. If you listen to most modern music, there is some aspect of sampling in it.
I found that the documentary is free to watch on Youtube (at least as of this writing):
I think it’s an interesting movie because it touches upon the relationship of art and money and how we take inspiration from one another in making our creative works. The documentary features opinions of both lawyers and musicians.
For some people, sampling can be contentious, but done right it really shouldn’t be. In my opinion, and that of sampling’s best practitioners, good sampling is based on transforming sound from its original context – actually changing the sound into something new that still might reference the original work. Dropping something into a new song wholesale might be a different story (Ice, Ice, Baby).
