When the Recording Industry Association of America stepped up its efforts to crack down on
CD plants manufacturing pirated and bootlegged albums this year, the initiative had a strange
side effect. Some groups whose songs incorporated samples of music by other artists without
written consent suddenly discovered that CD makers were unwilling to press copies of their albums. This
resulted in a story about how one small band made a big enough noise to force the industry to revise its
guidelines, which it did on Tuesday.
Last month, the group Negativland -- known for challenging copyright law with its sample-heavy
collages, which have attracted the ire of U2 and the radio personality Casey Kasem -- discovered that no
CD pressing plant was willing to make copies of a new album documenting its radio show because it
included an unlicensed excerpt from Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon."* The band and record label
used to be held responsible for any legal repercussions of using copyrighted material without permission,
but in the last year the climate had changed and the recording association made it clear that CD-pressing
plants could be sued under copyright law for making CD's with unlicensed samples. Be it intentionally or
accidentally, every year hundreds of recordings with illegal excerpts of other songs are released, some of
them by major record labels.
Peter Eckart, president of Olde West, a CD-manufacturing company in San Francisco, was one of those
who refused to press copies of Negativland's CD. Previously, he was prevented from making copies of a
CD for the turntable group the Invisibl Skratch Picklz, which incorporated an unlicensed excerpt from a
song by Rush. Mr. Eckart said he was not happy about having to turn down those jobs. "Intellectually
and morally, I agree with Negativland completely," he said. "The R.I.A.A. has stepped out of its mission
of stopping piracy and bootlegging and knowingly stepped into the realm of censorship. They have the
plants so scared of lawsuits that they are being super-zealous. I told the group that no plant in America
would press this."
Two days ago, in response to complaints from Negativland fans, the association tried to make its position
on sampling -- a legal gray area -- a little clearer by amending its guidelines to CD-pressing plants, saying
that in some instances "sampling may qualify as fair use under copyright law" and recommending that CD
plants consult their lawyers to decide how to handle each situation. Hillary Rosen, the association's
president, said that now a band without sample clearance can still make a case to get its CD pressed.
The association's new position, however, has left many in the manufacturing industry unsatisfied. They
said that they resented pressure from what they feel is a private organization looking after the interests of
major record-label clients, and that in many cases it had been impossible to identify and difficult to deal
with such samples on albums.
Ms. Rosen said although the guidelines were not originally intended to cover sampling, she felt
irresponsible telling plants to press CD's with excerpts of copyrighted material. Though the association
has never sued a CD manufacturer for making copies of records with illegal samples, she said: "It's not
fair to tell a plant to ignore samples. Anytime a CD plant does something, it has responsibility under
copyright law."
