It was a time when music fans copied and traded recordings without
permission. An outraged music industry pushed Congress to pass
anti-piracy legislation. Yes, that time is now; it was also the era of
Napster in the 1990s, of cassette tapes in the 1970s, of reel-to-reel
tapes in the 1950s, even the phonograph epoch of the 1930s. Piracy, it
turns out, is as old as recorded music itself. In Democracy of Sound,
Alex Sayf Cummings uncovers the little-known history of music piracy and
its sweeping effects on the definition of copyright in the United
States. When copyright emerged, only visual material such as books and
maps were thought to deserve protection; even musical compositions were
not included until 1831. Once a performance could be captured on a wax
cylinder or vinyl disc, profound questions arose over the meaning of
intellectual property.
Is only a written composition defined as a piece of art? If a singer
performs a different interpretation of a song, is it a new and distinct
work? Such questions have only grown more pressing with the rise of
sampling and other forms of musical pastiche. Indeed, music has become
the prime battleground between piracy and copyright. It is compact,
making it easy to copy. And it is highly social, shared or traded
through social networks--often networks that arise around music itself.
But such networks also pose a counter-argument: as channels for copying
and sharing sounds, they were instrumental in nourishing hip-hop and
other new forms of music central to American culture today. Piracy is
not always a bad thing. An insightful and often entertaining look at the
history of music piracy, Democracy of Sound offers invaluable
background to one of the hot-button issues involving creativity and the
law.
