Copyright Criminals(2009)

🎬65 min
📅2009-05-21
🎭Music, Documentary
⭐6.8/10

Overview

Copyright Criminals examines the creative and commercial value of musical sampling, including the related debates over artistic expression, copyright law, and (of course) money. This documentary traces the rise of hip-hop from the urban streets of New York to its current status as a multibillion-dollar industry. For more than thirty years, innovative hip-hop performers and producers have been re-using portions of previously recorded music in new, otherwise original compositions. When lawyers and record companies got involved, what was once referred to as a “borrowed melody” became a “copyright infringement.” The film showcases many of hip-hop music’s founding figures like Public Enemy, De La Soul, and Digital Underground—while also featuring emerging hip-hop artists from record labels Definitive Jux, Rhymesayers, Ninja Tune, and more.

Production

Changeing Images

Share this movie

FacebookTwitterLinkedInEmail

Cast

Aesop Rock
as Himself
George Clinton
as Himself
Chuck D
as Himself
El-P
as Himself
Sage Francis
as Himself
Pam the Funsktress
as Herself
Bobbito Garcia
as Himself
Miho Hatori
as Herself
Shock G
as Himself
Mix Master Mike
as Himself

More Like This

Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché

⭐6.7

Moulin Rouge!

⭐7.5

Sensation in San Remo

⭐8.0

8-8-88 Church of Satan Mansonite Rally

Black Moon - Behind The Moon

Boot Camp Clik - From The Front Lines

Tha Alkaholiks: X.O. The Movie Experience

Digital Underground - Raw & Uncut

Chuck D's Hip-Hop Hall Of Fame

⭐7.3

DJ Q-Bert - For Intellectual Dumasses