On April 2, 2018, our HIST 390 class discussed the concept of “data sampling” and discussed the history, ideas, and debate surrounding it.  To sum it all up, data sampling began to truly develop somewhere between the 1970s and the 1980s, especially with the rise of turntable technology and sound editing software, hardware, and systems.  This was especially true in the late 1980’s, where digital sampling had become more affordable.  Data sampling was the practice of people (usually men) taking bits and pieces of other people’s music, taking it out of context, and repurposing it, mixing it around with bits and pieces of other music and hopefully creating something new with it.  This process and practice aligned somewhat perfectly with Claude Shannon’s “information theory”, a theory where one of the main ideas was the fact that, in the future, information will be taken, handled, and transmitted into bits and pieces, which is exactly what DJs do with music.  While this type of information may seem inconsequential at first (especially with the generally low opinion the profession of DJ seems to carry around with it), the work of DJs, or at the very least, the practice of taking apart music and using bits and pieces of it to create something new, is more prevalent than one would originally think.  For example, one may have grown up with or at least have some sort of idea, knowledge, or recognition of the popular cartoon and kid’s show, “The Powerpuff Girls”.   Its theme song sets the mood and arguably encapsulates everything great about the show, something that any decent theme song should do.  That being said, however, the show’s theme song actually uses the beat from famous musician, James Brown.  Mind you, the theme song isn’t completely copying a song from James Brown, just the basic drum beat and arguably just making it faster.   While some would accuse this of being an example of very blatant stealing, another side of this would be that “The Powerpuff Girls” is acknowledging and respecting a part of musical history by using a beat from a relatively old artist at the time and introducing a great drum beat back for an entirely new generation.  It is in this way that sampling can easily be considered a practice that isn’t really about stealing from other, more successful artists, but as repurposing history.  That hasn’t stopped people from treating the practice like it was stealing however, and examples of the repercussions of such actions are just as many as examples of nothing truly bad happening at all.  Marvin Gaye’s family apparently sued Robin Thicke’s use of sampling one of Gaye’s songs (it was apparently used in Robin Thicke’s (in)famous song, “Blurred Lines”) and as a result, whenever the song plays on the radio, Marvin Gaye’s family monetarily benefit from it.  Copyright truly is a terrifying and complicated issue.

Personally, sampling seems like a fun, though complicated and hair pulling practice.  It definitely doesn’t sound like something that I would want to get into professionally, because if I ever did attempt to pursue being a DJ or music sampling and producing as my intended career choice, it seems like I would spend just as much time in a court room as I would in the music studio.  Again, in what should be an artistic profession, why is there so much scrutiny put into milking as much money as one possibly can from their work as possible?  All this seems to do is discourage creativity.  Yes, money is important, I’m not arguing against capitalism and people getting the money they deserve from their own hard work, but the human mind can be so limited!  Sure, theoretically speaking, the number of beats could potentially be infinite, but with how limited the human brain can be, why wouldn’t two different artists organically come up with the same beat?  Apparently assuming innocence until proven guilty does not truly exist in the music world, which is sad, because sampling does seem like a legitimately fun thing to do.  Taking bits and pieces of music and altering them bit by bit so that something new can be created, the possibilities are potentially just as endless as making original music, maybe even more so!  It’s just a shame that copyright laws hinder such potential creativity.