RUPTURE SAMPLERS & DJ DRAMA DRAMA

In today’s news, a French rap crew has sampled me with great results. Listen to La Route es Longue. V-System do a wholesale chop on the synth/bass/beat of ‘DJ Rupture- Dem Nuh Know Me’. I’ve been calling the RIAA to see if they can dial-in some sort of long-range missile attack, or at least get a crack team of French Legionnaires to arrest all members of V-System for copyright violation. Bang!

the official unofficial Mudd Up! position on the DJ Drama drama is that a major label executive who couldn’t place his rapper on one of Drama’s Gangsta Grillz mixtapes snitched to the RIAA, using the RIAA’s brute, twitchy unintelligence against itself.

the official Mudd Up! position is that we don’t give a —.* But Free the DJs does, and they look poised to continue examining legal aspects of the Drama drama after mainstream analysis subsides.

* if we want to talk about American legal system injustice, inept RIAA mixtape squads are the least of our worries… and if we want to condemn archaic ideas about intellectual property/copyright, lets hit pharmaceutical patents and generic AIDS drugs etc first…

6 thoughts on “RUPTURE SAMPLERS & DJ DRAMA DRAMA”

  1. ” * if we want to talk about American legal system injustice, inept RIAA mixtape squads are the least of our worries… and if we want to condemn archaic ideas about intellectual property/copyright, lets hit pharmaceutical patents and generic AIDS drugs etc first… ”

    seriously.

    you’re right– unfortunately, coverage of intellectual property/copyright issues is not only rare in the mainstream media, it’s trivialized by being largely presented by cases of outright plagiarism, which makes the argument harder to make on scream shows. this drama thing and its economic ramifications (and intellectual property in the arts in general vis-a-vis pharmaceutical patents) is about as decent a discussion as you’re going to see about this in the nytimes.

    that the discussion is either about economics or a minor change in the legal system is, of course, even more depressing.

  3. Pingback: FREE the DJs » Blog Archive » Now That’s What I’m Screamin

  4. jace, while i completely sympathize and agree with your take on the AIDS drugs/big pharma issues, let’s also remember that patents and copyright (so-called “intellectual property”) are not in fact the same thing.

    maybe i’m just trying to justify what i’m doing with my life, but i’ve had this dilemma quite a bit: why am i working on issues of culture and freedom of ideas when people are out there dying? my solution: they’re not mutually exclusive, and i can try to do both (and have been working on human rights issues as well.) i think, though, that if people completely gave up on this fight, it would be a sad day indeed, because access to information and knowledge can have extremely far-reaching implications (i.e. access to critical scientific research that can save peoples’ lives, or playing a role in putting an end to political oppression.)

    so maybe i’m just trying to rationalize what it is i’ve devoted my life to lately, but issues like overhauling the legal system, saving lives, and promoting free culture can in fact be complimentary.

    (also: FTDJs is not just about examining the legal situation–it’s also poised to look at the greater societal, cultural, and economic issues surrounding mixtapes, hip hop, and the structure of the music industry.)

  5. thanks for the clarification/ conflation-correction Elizabeth! I certainly didn’t mean to belittle the folks who are fighting for legal sanity regarding copyright & free culture — i love you all dearly, especially being a mixtape DJ who has, ahem, been approached by lawyers..

    i was just trying to use the Drama drama momentum to mention related issues usually out of mainstream media dialog.

    The wave of interest & activism around DJ Drama seems nice yet fleeting, and i began thinking how it is harder for similarly-themed issues like generic AIDS drugs (“bootlegs”) & big pharma (“the majors”) to tip into sudden widespread internet scrutiny/debate because they lack a flashy press moment — so my small contrib to the Drama discussion was to talk about that — related but unequal issues that many free-the-dj folks might also resonate with.

    Aside: the other day i realized that i should probably become an expert passport forger to best realize my vision/hope of a globalized world where people & ideas can cross national borders as easily as capital and corporations do…..

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