publisher colophon

Notes

PREFACE

  1. For a fuller overview of hip-hop photography, see Adler 2006.

  2. Cooper 2004, 7–24, 57–63.

  3. Cooper 2004, 72–109.

  4. Marshall 1993, 16. For a literary version of this satirical use of copyright symbols and discourse, see Ellis 2003, 19, 109.

  5. The scholarship of Funmi Arewa, Stephen Best, Michael Brown, Julie Cohen, Rosemary Coombe, Jane Gaines, K. J. Greene, Henry Jenkins, Lawrence Lessig, Kembrew McLeod, Richard Posner, Carol Rose, Susan Scafidi, Patricia Sluby, Siva Vaidhyanathan, and many others has created the intellectual space for this project.

  6. The research of H. Sami Alim, Derrick Alridge, Todd Boyd, Yvonne Bynoe, Jeff Chang, William Jelani Cobb, Murray Forman, Bakari Kitwana, Joan Morgan, Mark Anthony Neal, Patrick Neal, William Eric Perkins, Gwendolyn Pough, Tricia Rose, Joseph Schloss, Craig Watkins, and many others has provided the foundation for my discussion of hip-hop culture.

  7. The writings of Derrick Bell, Devon Carbado, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, Lani Guinier, Charles Lawrence, Mari Matsuda, Patricia Williams, and many others have shaped my understanding of critical race theory.

  8. Because this book is illustrative, not exhaustive, in its approach, I have been forced to omit many important writers and painters. Significant omissions include Paul Beatty, Trey Ellis, Percival Everett, Ellen Gallagher, Darius James, Jake Lamar, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Allison Saar, Danzy Senna, Clarissa Sligh, Touré, Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley, and George C. Wolfe. In their works, the elements of the hip-hop aesthetic are clearly present, but the critique of intellectual property law is not always as pronounced, even if as these texts clearly stake ownership claims and analyze the relationships among property, propriety, and self-ownership.

  9. Fouché 2006, 641. See also Sluby 2004; Weheliye 2005; Fouché 2003.

10. See generally Alridge 2005.

CHAPTER I

  1. Pough argues that Barbershop offers a criticism of the bourgeois orientation of the Civil Rights Movement (2004, 229 n39).

  2. Boyd 2002, xxi–xxii. See also Boyd 2004. Therein Yusuf Nuruddin questions Boyd about his 2002 book and his view of the divide between the Civil Rights and hip-hop generations.

  3. Blackburn 2004, 81–87.

  4. Best 2004, 30–41.

  5. For an interesting account of how some slaves understood their status as property, see Penningroth 2003, 137–144.

  6. I have intentionally omitted discussion of the reparations debate here, although I would argue that the majority of reparations proponents have developed arguments that hinge on the symbolic properties of any potential economic redistribution. It appears as if reparations would recognize and repay the contributions (both physical and cultural) of African Americans to the building of America's wealth. See generally Robinson 2000.

  7. Related to my focus on property, Derrick Alridge argues that the Civil Rights and hip-hop generations share the rhetoric of self-determination and Black Nationalism (2005, 233–245).

  8. Stepto 1991, 3 (italics in original).

  9. Stepto 1991, 26.

10. Carby 1987, 36.

11. Gates 1987, xi.

12. See Washington 1959.

13. Lamar 1996, 342.

14. Dixon 2002, 47.

15. Dixon 2002, 20.

16. Equiano 1995, 187–196.

17. Jacobs 1988, 290.

18. Jacobs 1988, 302–303.

19. Houston Baker argues that the slave narratives, including those of Frederick Douglass, endorse commercial exchange because the “nineteenth-century slave, in effect, publicly sells his voice in order to secure private ownership of his voice-person” (1984, 50).

20. Douglass 1997b, 126.

21. Douglass 1969, 375 (italics mine).

22. C. Harris 1993, 1791.

23. Antebellum legal discourse specifically recognized the potential links or conflicts between slavery and patent law. See Lubar 1991, 954; Forness 1980, 25; Sluby 2004, 31–32.

24. Washington 1959, 154.

25. Washington 1959, 155.

26. Washington presented his famous speech at the 1895 Atlanta Exposition, which, among other things, showcased African American innovation and ingenuity (Sluby 2004, 51–55). Questioning Washington's implicit linkage of patented inventions and wealth, Fouché argues that patents rarely translated into wealth because of racism (2003, 5–8).

27. Washington 1959, 156.

28. Washington 1959, 158.

29. Washington 1959, 3. For a genealogical account of the black thief from the slave narrative to Hurricane Katrina, see L. King 2007, 255.

30. See generally Neal 2004.

31. Du Bois 1969, 87.

32. Du Bois 1969, 45.

33. See Allen 2002.

34. See Lewis and Willis 2003.

35. Du Bois 1969, 88.

36. “It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others” (Du Bois 1969, 45 [italics mine]).

37. A. Locke 1997, 19 (italics mine).

38. See Ancient Egyptian Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine v. Michaux 1929; Creswill v. Grand Lodge Knights of Pythias of Georgia 1912.

39. Schmidt and Babchuk 1973, 277.

40. Liazos and Ganz 2004, 488–489.

41. K. Greene 1999, 356–357. See also Kofsky 1998, 15–24.

42. Sanjek and Sanjek 1996, 351.

43. Kofsky 1998, 21–22, 29–34.

44. Garofalo 2002, 114.

45. T. Rose 1996, 243–244; Perry 2004, 49.

46. Hansberry borrowed the situation from her parents’ struggle fighting restrictive covenants in 1930s Chicago. Hansberry v. Lee was one of many cases developed by the NAACP to challenge residential discrimination and the way whites used property law doctrines to maintain racial hierarchy. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled in another case that such restrictive covenants were unconstitutional in 1948. See Hansberry v. Lee 1940; Shelley v. Kraemer 1948.

47. Cone 1991, 316.

48. M. King 1969, 65.

49. M. King 2001, 82.

50. M. King 2001. 82.

51. Malcolm X 1965b, 9–10.

52. Malcolm X 1965b, 11.

53. Malcolm X 1965a, 39.

54. 42 U.S. Code Sec. 2000a (2004).

55. Lani Guinier questions whether color-blindness makes sense as a policy or legal objective. She reminds us that “color blindness is a vision defect” or an “abnormal medical condition” (1998, 287).

56. D. King and Wiley 2003, 197–211.

57. Eakin 2002.

58. Alkalimat 2002a, 2002b.

59. Lee 2002.

60. See Parks v. Laface Records 2003.

61. Neal 2002, 22.

62. Boyd 2002, 11–12.

63. See Seale v. Gramercy 1997; Ringgold v. Black Entertainment Television1997.

64. George 1998, 155.

65. A summary judgment motion asks the court to assume the truth of all the plaintiff's (in this case, Rosa Parks) allegations and determine whether a cause of action exists.

66. Parks v. Laface Records 2003, 449.

67. Schloss offers the Bearden analogy (2004, 152–153).

68. R. Kelley 1997, 37.

69. Parks v. Laface Records 2003, 458.

CHAPTER 2

  1. See Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp.1977.

  2. Kelman 1987, 3.

  3. Unger 1986, 8.

  4. See Minda 1995, 117–122; P. Williams 1991, 7.

  5. Goodrich 1998, 237.

  6. For an example, see Kelman 1984.

  7. P. Williams 1991, 146–165.

  8. See Crenshaw 2002, 1354–1365.

  9. Crenshaw et al. 1995, xi.

10. Kitwana 2002, 9–22.

11. See also Haney Lopez 1998.

12. See D. Bell 1987, 1992, 1996; Delgado 1995.

13. P. Williams 1991, 6–8.

14. See Farber and Sherry 1997, 13.

15. Delgado 1993, 110.

16. Gutièrrez-Jones 2001, 21–47.

17. Neal 2002, 116.

18. Gates 1988, xix.

19. Gates 1988, 88.

20. Gates 1988, 78 (italics in original).

21. Gates 1988, 86.

22. Gates 1988, 68, 78.

23. Gates 1988, 77.

24. R. Kelley 1997, 1.

25. Mitchell-Kernan 1999, 311.

26. Gates 1988, 79.

27. McGruder 2003, 79.

28. McGruder is not the first to parody the whiteness of comic strips. See Stromberg 2003, 141.

29. Gates 1988, 104.

30. McGruder 2003, 179–180.

31. Gates 1988, 94, 107, 124.

32. Tate 1992, 158.

33. Gates 1988, 124.

34. Perry 2004, 61–63; T. Rose 1994, 123.

35. See Krims 2000, 95; Vaidhyanathan 2003, 312; Schloss 2004, 161–163; Tate et al. 2006, 45.

36. Gates 1988, 66.

37. Douglass 1997a, 78–80. Not all reprints of Douglass's narrative include the appendix, where this song appears.

38. A Tribe Called Quest 1990.

39. Demers 2006, 81.

40. This description owes much to Jon-Christian Suggs's argument that “another metaphor for the relationship between American law and African American narrative is that of the palimpsest, in which one text is written over another” (2000, 11).

41. Aoki 2007, 760. Other intellectual property law scholars have argued that copyright should be rewritten from the perspective of the ordinary people who use copyrighted materials by taking account of practices like signifyin’ (Litman 2002, 134; J. Cohen 2005, 348).

42. See Neal 2002, 116.

43. Penalver and Katyal 2007, 1098–1101.

44. Katyal 2006, 493.

45. See T. Rose 1994, 100–101; Perry 2004, 102–112; Demers 2006, 91; Schumacher 2004, 451–454. Ironically, hip-hop generation artists do want to “get paid” even if they are also engaging in semiotic disobedience. For examples, see Adler 2006, 116; Peterson 2006, 896–897.

46. Many posit the hip-hop nation as a key force in shaping the culture. Heath finds this framing problematic but nonetheless argues that hip-hop “demands its own degree of cultural literacy (2006, 848–849 [italics in original]). Heath later suggests that in addition to the traditional four elements of hip-hop culture (deejaying, graffiti, breaking, and emceeing), we might add the hip-hop nation (862–863). See also Schloss 2004, 176.

47. Gaines (1998, 1991), Coombe (1998), McLeod (2001, 2007), and Vaidhyanathan (2003, 2004) have helped intellectual property lawyers understand the cultural processes that shape the texts that become the subject of copyright disputes. Gaines initiated the field with her Contested Cultures (1991), and Coombe demonstrated the essential role copyrighted and trademarked texts play in our cultural and political lives. Following in their footsteps, Kembrew McLeod has offered a wonderful description of how hip-hop artists have responded to legal intrusions into sampling (2001, 77–99). His account includes some discussion of how producers rely on samples for the purposes of parody and signifyin’. In his book Freedom of Expression®, McLeod shows how African American uses of sampling fit within the greater conflict about fair use in the music industry. At times, there is some slippage as he equates African American instances of signifyin’ with other forms of critical copying (2007, 63–113). Similarly, Siva Vaidhyanathan has argued, in the midst of his discussion of hip-hop and copyright, that “the tension in the law is not between urban lower class and corporate uberclass. It's not between black artists and white record executives. It's not always a result of conflicts between white songwriters and the black composers who sample them. It is in fact a struggle between the established entities in the music business and those trying to get established. It is a conflict between old and new” (2003, 133). From the vantage point of African American cultural history, the very construction of the music business and the battle between existing and emerging musical forms are deeply intertwined with racial politics and the history of racism that pervades all aspects of American life, including intellectual property law. Rather than seeking to resolve the debate, this book seeks to identify the conflicting assumptions between cultural studies and intellectual property law accounts of the law's regulation of hip-hop. The former tend to assume that hip-hop possesses a unique aesthetic vision based on a shared cultural tradition, whereas the latter view hip-hop as one aspect of shared contemporary conflict regarding the circulation of ideas, images, and texts. See Perry 2004, 114; Miller 2006, 154. Because I am relying on hip-hop aesthetics as the unifying element of my analysis, my assumptions about the nature of African American culture diverge at times with those of McLeod and Vaidhyanathan. My emphasis here is on the meaning of cultural texts and how they perform a political critique (similar to Coombe), not the freedom of their creators to engage in musical, literary, or artistic endeavors. Regardless of this relatively minor debate, McLeod, Vaidhyanathan, and I all are extending Rosemary Coombe's project of reorienting the conversation about intellectual property law as a way of fostering engaged democratic debate and keeping culture relatively safe from legal regulation. See Coombe 1998, 266.

48. See generally Fouché 2003.

49. From my initial question about copyright, it quickly became apparent that trademark law was also implicated in these questions. Because Gates is primarily concerned with copyrighted texts, my discussion here focuses on copyright. Later discussions, especially the section on Michael Ray Charles, engage trademark law. See K. Greene 1999; Schumacher 2004; McLeod 2001; Demers 2006; and Arewa 2006a, 2006b for insightful analyses of this question.

50. See Gaines 1991, 1998; Coombe 1998; McLeod 2001, 2007; Vaidhyanathan 2003, 2004.

51. 17 U.S.C. sec 106.

52. See Arewa 2006a, 2006b; Aoki 2007.

53. See Gaines 1991, 1998; Coombe 1998; Vaidhyanathan 2003, 2004; McLeod 2001, 2007; J. Cohen 2005; Lessig 2002, 2004; Jenkins 2006; Gillespie 2007.

54. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Colescott re-visioned a number of classic images from European art and American popular culture.

55. See Demers 2006 and McLeod 2007 for a nice overview of how courts answer these questions.

56. For an excellent discussion examining whether intellectual property rights are human rights, see Yu 2007.

57. For a discussion of other legal cases during the early days of hip-hop, see McLeod 2001, 87–96.

58. Grand Upright Music v. Warner Brothers 1991, 183.

59. Grand Upright Music v. Warner Brothers 1991, 185.

60. Walter McDonough, a copyright lawyer with experience clearing samples, reports that Gilbert O'Sullivan refused to license the samples because the sampled material came from a song describing his parents’ death. This exemplifies why many copyright activists argue the need for a compulsory licensing system. See McLeod 2007, 112–113.

61. See P. Williams 1991; C. Harris 1993; Ross 1996; Headley 2006.

62. Grand Upright Music v. Warner Brothers 1991, 185.

63. See Baldwin 1985; Lawrence 1987; Austin 1989; P. Williams 1991; Morrison 1992b; Lubiano 1996; Omi 1996; R. Kelley 1997.

64. Jarvis v. A&M Music1992.

65. Tuff’N’ Rumble Management v. Profile Records 1997.

66. Newton v. Diamond 2003.

67. Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Films 2005.

68. Ty v. Publications International Limited 2002. This case did not involve hip-hop sampling, but courts and commentators saw it as being particularly relevant to sampling disputes.

69. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose 1994, 579.

70. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose 1994, 581. In Ty v. Publications International Limited (2002), the Seventh Circuit apparently endorsed this distinction and suggested that much hip-hop sampling and ironic copying might be permissible under fair use.

71. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose 1994, 593.

72. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose 1994, 572.

73. Rogers v. Koons 1992.

74. Gates 1990.

75. Schumacher 2004, 451–454.

CHAPTER 3

  1. See generally L. Jones 1963.

  2. Walker 1982; G. Jones 1975.

  3. See Powell 1998.

  4. I have developed my definition of hip-hop aesthetics by synthesizing the work of numerous hip-hop studies scholars, including H. Sami Alim, Jeff Chang, William Jelani Cobb, Nelson George, Mark Anthony Neal, William Eric Perkins, Tricia Rose, Joseph Schloss, Greg Tate, and Craig Watkins.

  5. Originally, I included orality as a fifth characteristic of hip-hop. After reviewing Aldon Nielsen's Black Chant (1997), exploring hip-hop's connection to the Black Arts Movement, I found that Neilsen's observation that “African American traditions of orality and textuality were not opposed to one another and did not exist in any simple or simplistic opposition to modernity and postmodernity” suggested that any attempt to label hip-hop as either oral or textual was too simplistic (Neilsen 1997, 34). Thus, I reframed my analysis and have been better able to view the play between orality and textuality within hip-hop aesthetics.

  6. A. Murray 1976, 16–20.

  7. See Chang 2005, 416; Sanjek and Sanjek 1996, 680. For numerous instances of how hip-hop was entering mainstream consciousness during the 1980s, from Run DMC's “Walk this Way” to the creation of Yo! MTV Raps, see George 2004.

  8. For a fuller historical or chronological account of hip-hop music, see Chang 2005; George 1998; Toop 2000; Perkins 1996; Krims 2000.

  9. Smith 1993, xxii.

10. C. West 1993, xix.

11. Thompson 2003, 137; Modleski 1997, 72–73.

12. Kennell Jackson uses the term cultural traffic, rather than sampling, to describe this process (2005, 11).

13. Schloss 2004, 152–153. See also George 2004, x.

14. See A. Murray 1976.

15. See Gates 1988.

16. Schloss 2004, 65–66.

17. Fricke and Ahearn 2002, 46–47.

18. Fricke and Ahearn 2002, 58.

19. Schloss 2004, 36–37.

20. Schloss 2004, 49.

21. See T. Rose 1994, 79.

22. J. Locke 1980, 19. For a recent effort at supplying a Lockean framework for intellectual property law, see Horowitz.

23. Borrowing from law and economics, I argue that sampling fosters innovation because it encourages artists to take symbols, texts, or objects that may have little contemporary value and gives them new meaning. See Landes and Posner 2003, 56–68. Within law and economics, the question is not whether intellectual property should be protected (it clearly should be), but what is the socially optimal and most efficient way to balance the competing goals of fostering innovation and providing a sufficient reward structure for creators. See Liebowitz 2002, 197.

24. Schloss 2004, 79.

25. Smith 1993, xxxi.

26. Martin 1993, 57.

27. Smith 1993, xxiii.

28. Smith 1993, xxv–xxvi.

29. Smith 1993, xxvii.

30. Smith 1993, xxviii.

31. T. Rose 1994, 41.

32. Vlach 1978, 55.

33. Kiracofe 1993, 202.

34. Modleski 1997, 69.

35. Smith 1993, 16.

36. Smith 1993, 17.

37. Smith 1993, 21–22 (errors and italics in original).

38. Smith 1993, 25.

39. Patricia Williams explains that Smith creates “constructed dialogues” where people appear to engage in conversations that contemporary society needs but that have been missing from our culture (2004, 16–17).

40. Smith 1993, xxxii.

41. T. Rose 1994, 64–65.

42. T. Rose 1994, 67.

43. See A. Murray 1997, 95; Ripani 2006, 44–45.

44. See also Miyakawa 2005, 75.

45. Radano 2003, 103.

46. T. Rose 1994, 38–39. See also Miyakawa 2005, 81.

47. Obviously, there are notable exceptions, such as Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, the Chicago Art Ensemble, and Carla Bley, who have relied on numerous sounds and songs.

48. See Harvey 1989, 284–307.

49. Smith 1993, xl.

50. Smith 1993, xxxix.

51. Smith 1994, xxxiii–xxxiv.

52. A. Murray 1997, 94.

53. A. Murray 1997, 95.

54. Reinelt 1996, 614.

55. Smith 1994, xxiv (italics in original).

56. T. Rose 1994, 2.

57. A. Murray 1973, 25–33.

58. Frye 1957, 223.

59. Frye 1957, 40–41.

60. White 1973, 38–39.

61. Rorty 1989, 73–74.

62. Rorty 1989, 94–95.

63. Deleuze 1994, 7. See also Colebrook 2004, 140.

64. Deleuze 1994, 68.

65. Suggs relies on this approach to irony in showing that African American literature sought to rewrite American legal discourse via irony (2000, 100–110).

66. Hutcheon 1994, 19–21.

67. Hutcheon 1994, 94–95. See also Colebrook 2004, 169. Colebrook argues that postmodern irony reveals how “inhuman, machinic or errant forces” help define the meaning of language even as irony interrogates the instability of those social forces.

68. Dickson-Carr 2001, 17.

69. Dickson-Carr 2001, 164–207.

70. Perry 2004, 95.

71. Peterson 2006, 898, 904–905.

72. Peterson 2006, 903.

73. “Episode Thirteen,” Chappelle's Show: Season Two.

74. See “Episode One,” Chappelle's Show: Season One.

75. T. Rose 1994, 128–129; George 2004, 214; Chang 2005, 325–329.

76. N.W.A. 1988.

77. N.W.A. 1988.

78. T. Rose 1994, 100. See also Perry 2004, 50.

79. Hutcheon describes this as an essential characteristic of postmodern irony (1”4, 94–95).

80. Smith 1993, xli.

81. Smith 1994, xxv.

82. Smith 1994, 243.

83. Smith 1993, xxxiii.

84. Smith 1993, xxviii.

85. DeLong 2002, 25.

86. 17 U.S.C. sec. 106.

87. MGM Studios v. Grokster 2005, 926.

88. See Best 2004, 98.

89. It is not my claim that this pure romantic conception of authorship has ever existed within U.S. legal doctrine. See Saint-Amour 2003, 6–7, 14; Chartier 2003, 28.

90. For an overview of the debate about how the romantic theory of ownership intersects with intellectual property law, see T. Rose 1993; Woodmansee and Janzi 1994; Vaidhyanathan 2003.

91. See George 1998, 154–175, 193–200.

92. Because intellectual property law is changing so quickly, it is quite possible that future readers will find that courts have abandoned the idea/expression dichotomy.

CHAPTER 4

  1. See generally Chang 2005.

  2. See generally Chang 2005.

  3. See Croyden 1994, 220; Angelo 1994, 257; Fussell 1994, 289. For Morrison's recent decision to include rap as part of the show she curated for the Louvre, see Riding 2006.

  4. See Fussell 1994, 285; Morrison and West 2004; Moses 1999; Rice 2000; Randle 2001; Eckstein 2006.

  5. For an account of how Morrison's texts overlap essentialist and antiessentialist rhetorics, see McBride 1997.

  6. Krumholz 1999, 109.

  7. B. Bell 1998, 175.

  8. Ellis 1989, 234–237.

  9. See Perez-Torres 1997.

10. See chapter 3.

11. Middleton Harris 1974, 10.

12. Weisenburger 1998, 77–78.

13. Darling 1994, 248.

14. Morrison 1987a, 148.

15. Morrison 1987a, 151–152.

16. Morrison 1987a, 88.

17. For a vivid illustration, see Morrison 1994, 21.

18. Morrison 1987a, 164.

19. Morrison's sampling of multiple voices constitutes a literary response or articulation of Kimberlé Crenshaw's theory of “intersectionality,” developed within critical race theory during this same historical period. For Crenshaw, intersectionality acknowledges that individuals do not hold simply one identity (race, gender, or class), but possess multiple identities simultaneously. See Crenshaw 1991.

20. Dubey 1999, 187.

21. L. King 1998, 272.

22. As with any piece of literature, scholars have noted Beloved’s links to other texts. Lori Askeland has observed that Beloved borrows from Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and includes reconfigured “samples” from it (1999, 161). Similarly, Richard Moreland argues that Morrison sampled Amy, the girl who helps Sethe deliver Denver, from Twain's Huckleberry Finn, and Caroline Woidat finds borrowed characters from Hawthorne as well. Beloved also contains references and samples from the Old and New Testaments, with its use of the word beloved.

23. Although they do not connect Beloved to hip-hop or its underlying aesthetic, Nellie McKay, Barbara Christian, and Deborah McDowell share my conclusion that the novel relies on layers as key narrative tool (1999, 207–210).

24. Morrison 1987a, 190.

25. Morrison 1987a, 190.

26. Morrison 1987a, 216.

27. See Dussere 2003, 60.

28. Morrison 1987a, 199.

29. Morrison 1987a, 273.

30. Perez-Torres 1997, 92–93

31. Gilroy 2000, 222.

32. See Morrison 1992b, 1996.

33. Morrison 1992b, 13 (italics in original).

34. Rushdy 1999, 52–53.

35. Christian, McDowell, and McKay 1999, 219.

36. Suggs 2000, 290.

37. Crouch 1990, 205.

38. Crouch 1990, 206.

39. Morrison 1994, 21.

40. See also McBride 1997.

41. See Croyden 1994.

42. Morrison 1987a, 275.

43. Morrison 1987b, 110.

44. Morrison 1994, 11.

45. Morrison 1994, 12.

46. See Piper 1996, 1: 234. See also John Bowles 2006.

47. Mercer 1999, 48. See also Piper 1996, 1: 248.

48. See Morrison 1992b, xi.

49. Fisher 1999, 39–40.

50. Piper has not always explicitly linked her own work to hip-hop music or the rest of hip-hop culture. Rather, she has attempted to show solidarity with black working-class culture through her discussion and use of funk and R&B in her work. In Funk Lesson, she prepared a handout for participants that identified the five basic structures of funk (dissonance, multilayered melodies, polyrhythms, self-composition, and orality) and its three basic themes (self-transcendence, sexual love, and affirmation of self-respect or unity) (1996, 1: 213–214). During the 1980s and 1990s, Piper began to reference hip-hop.

51. Piper 1996, 1: 9.

52. See Schloss 2004.

53. Hayt-Atkins 1991, 49–50.

54. Piper 1996, 2: 183.

55. Piper 1996, 2: 268.

56. It is unclear whether she received permission to incorporate other artists’ songs into her artwork. By contrast, Piper has explicitly recognized photographers and gotten their permission when incorporating their work.

57. Piper 1996, 2: 253

58. Piper 1996, 2: 241.

59. Piper 1996, 2: 266.

60. Piper 1996, 2: 158.

61. Wallace 2004, 243; Wallace 1994, 204–205.

62. Piper 1996, 1: 181.

63. Storr 1996, xxvi.

64. Piper 1996, 1: 267.

65. Lippard 1990, 241.

66. K. Greene 1999, 343.

67. See Arewa 2006a.

68. Best 2004, 15–16.

69. Best 2004, 94–98.

70. Best 2004, 274–275.

71. Best 2004, 275.

72. Gaines 1998, 546–547.

73. Piper 1996, 1: 273. For an explanation of why newspapers do not have the same interest in protecting their intellectual property as other copyright and trademark holders, see Benkler 2006, 40.

74. Best 2004, 276.

75. See Delgado and Stefancic 1994; Levine 1996; Schur 2003.

76. Delgado 1995, xviii.

77. P. Williams 1991, 17–19, 44–51, 156–157.

78. P. Williams 1991, 164–165.

79. P. Williams 1991, 152 (italics in original).

80. P. Williams 1991, 149.

81. P. Williams 1991, 233–234.

82. Morrison 1996, 21.

83. Gates 1992, xvi.

CHAPTER 5

  1. D. Bell 1985, 13.

  2. D. Bell 1987, 24–25.

  3. D. Bell 1987, 31.

  4. D. Bell 1987, 43.

  5. See D. Bell 1992, 20.

  6. D. Bell 1992, 22.

  7. D. Bell 1996, 145.

  8. D. Bell 1996, 147–148.

  9. D. Bell 1996, 150.

10. See generally D. Bell 1980.

11. D. Bell 1987, 28.

12. See Campbell v. Acuff-Rose 1994; SunTrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin 2001.

13. See 17 U.S.C. sec 101–106.

14. 17 U.S.C. sec 107.

15. Nimmer 2003, 282.

16. Nimmer 2003, 280.

17. J. Cohen 2005, 370.

18. See also Coombe 1998.

19. J. Cohen 2005, 372.

20. Bradford 2005, 760.

21. Bradford 2005, 761–767.

22. Bradford appears to have directed her proposed doctrine at primarily commercial, as opposed to critical or academic, uses. See also Litman 2002, 134–139.

23. Austin 1995, 157.

24. See Dinerstein 2003, 318–320.

25. In some respects, John Henry Days elaborates on and anticipates concerns articulated by scholars during the past twenty years. See Gaines 1991; Coombe 1998; Vaidhyanathan 2003; McLeod 2001, 2007.

26. See Aoki 2007; Arewa 2006a, 2006b; K. Greene 1999.

27. Whitehead 2001, 198–205, 250–261.

28. Whitehead 2001, 102.

29. Whitehead 2001, 88.

30. Whitehead 2001, 49.

31. Whitehead 2001, 35–38.

32. Whitehead 2001, 59.

33. Whitehead 2001, 265.

34. Whitehead 2001, 263.

35. Whitehead 2001, 265.

36. Whitehead 2001, 107.

37. Whitehead 2001, 108.

38. Whitehead 2001, 112–117.

39. 17 U.S.C. sec. 107(1).

40. UNESCO 2005, 4–5.

41. See Grand Upright Music v. Warner Brothers 1991; Jarvis v. A&M Music 1992; Campbell v. Acuff-Rose 1994; SunTrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Company 2001; Newton v. Diamond 2003; Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Films 2005.

42. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose 1994, 581.

43. D. Sanjek 2006, 279–280.

44. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose 1994, 589.

45. SunTrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Company 2001, 1271.

46. SunTrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Company 2001, 1270.

47. SunTrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Company 2001, 1273.

48. Whitehead 2001, 380–383.

49. See generally New n.d.

50. Whitehead 2001, 204.

51. Whitehead 2001, 101.

52. Whitehead 2001, 102–103.

53. Whitehead 2001, 205.

54. For an effort to revise copyright to permit hip-hop and African American ironic uses of existing texts, see Madison 2005, 413.

55. 17 U.S.C. sec. 107(3).

56. A confusing jurisprudence has developed around this factor and the threshold test for making a copyright infringement claim. In order for a copyright owner to demonstrate a prima facie case, they must show that the copying was substantial enough to rise to the level of infringement. The de minimis doctrine requires that the copying must go beyond “a technical violation of a right so trivial that the law will not impose legal consequences” (Ringgold v. Black Entertainment Television 1997, 74). In Bridgeport, the court held that any copying of recorded sound constitutes an infringement (Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Films 2005, 803). See also Beck 2005; Schietinger 2005.

57. Arewa 2006b, 626–627.

58. Jeremy Beck asks a provocative question about how courts ought to determine or observe similarity between musical compositions. Beck argues that books, paintings, and film stills constitute “fixed time” objects, whereas music offers a “real time” text. He asks: “How many times would a fact finder need to listen in real time to a pair of recordings in order to analyze them? Would such incessant repetition—and the resulting familiarity—present a greater risk of infringement?” (2005, 10–11).

59. Arewa 2006b, 627, 641–644.

60. Gilroy 2000, 337.

61. 17 U.S.C. sec. 107(4).

62. A&M Records v. Napster 2001, 1024–1029.

63. A&M Records v. Napster 2001, 1034.

64. Field v. Google 2006, 20.

65. Ty v. Publications International Limited 2002, 518.

66. SunTrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Company 2001, 1276.

67. SunTrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Company 2001, 1277.

68. Courts’ willingness to enforce copyright against hip-hop has not necessarily or uniformly enriched the sampled artists, such as George Clinton and James Brown. Rather, it provides further illustration of the historical racism within the recording industry in which the major labels required even popular African American artists to sign contracts that did little to protect their interests.

69. Richards 2006, 10.

70. See generally New n.d.

71. Cadenhead 2006. See also N. Kelley 2003, 115–127; Kennedy 2002; Ayo 2005.

72. Kennedy 2002, 45. See also M. Watkins 1994, 131–132.

73. Kennedy 2002, 130–133.

74. In an ironic twist, Randall Kennedy recently testified on behalf of a white man accused of a hate crime because the man had shouted the N-word at his African American victim during the assault. Kennedy agreed to be an expert on the use and meaning of the N-word, sharing his insight that the N-word possesses many meanings, not just its function as a term of white supremacy. See Kilgannon 2006.

75. Moffat 2004, 1483.

76. Moffat 2004, 1488–1489.

77. 15 U.S.C sec 1127.

78. Halpern 2005, 241.

79. For a discussion of the complexity of the Black Arts Movement, see Smethurst 2005, 15.

80. Richards 2006, xxvii.

81. Judy 2004, 114.

82. Judy 2004, 115.

83. Sirmans 2005, 92.

84. Basquiat frequently relies on the copyright symbol in his work. The context of these symbols, however, suggests he ought to be invoking trademark. This mistaken use, because of its ubiquity within his oeuvre, calls attention to Modernism's privileging of mimesis and representation over authenticity. In other words, Basquiat situates copyright and trademark as opposing logics in which there is a sliding scale upon which viewers can rate the relative originality or derivative quality of a given work. Thus, Basquiat offers a subtle but ironic commentary on intellectual property's symbol of authenticity by replacing trademarks with copyright marks, which regulate who can possess the rights to copy a text or phrase.

85. Nielsen 1997, 34.

86. See R. Kelley 1998, 213.

87. See generally Tate 2003.

88. Anten 2006, 433.

89. Coombe 1998, 61.

90. 15 U.S.C. sec 1125 (c)(3)(A)(ii).

91. S. Greene 2006, 44.

92. S. Greene 2006, 77.

93. Halpern 2005, 238; Doellinger 2005, 404.

94. In a related development, a 2001 exhibition brought together patents, copyrighted texts, and trademarked items in one show. See Pictures, Patents 2001.

95. See also the artwork of Tania Hargest (Freestyle 2001, 40–41).

96. Michael Harris 2003, 107.

97. Reid 1998, 5.

98. Ellison 1995, 196–250.

99. For quotation, see Bacigalupi and Kern-Foxworth 1997, 21.

100. Michael Harris 2003, 202.

101. Urban legends identify the model for the logo as Jerry West.

102. Juliet Bowles 1997, 3.

103. Charles has commented that the painting also provides a commentary on Ice Cube's character from the movie Boyz in the Hood, whose name is Dough Boy. According to Charles, “serving” is “slang for selling drugs” (1998, 10).

104. Charles 1998, 2.

105. Bacigalupi and Kern-Foxworth 1997, 28.

106. R. Cohen 1997; Heller 1998.

107. Wallace 2004, 120–121.

108. Bacigalupi and Kern-Foxworth 1997, 28.

109. Bacigalupi and Kern-Foxworth 1997, 30.

110. Obviously, this analogy will inevitably break down because trademarks are alienable (i.e., the owner can disavow his trademark) and racial identity tends to be inalienable, although historical concerns about passing suggest that some people have alienated their racial identity.

111. A. Johnson 1996, 906.

112. A. Johnson 1996, 908–909.

113. A. Johnson 1996, 917.

114. A. Johnson 1996, 914.

115. A. Johnson 1996, 926.

116. A. Johnson 1996, 928.

117. A. Johnson 1996, 941–942.

118. A. Johnson 1996, 944–945.

119. Troutt 2005, 1205.

120. Troutt 2005, 1194.

121. Whitehead 2006, 211.

122. This is not to suggest that previous generations of activists did not engage with the racism of popular culture. Rather, it acknowledges that such interventions have increasingly become the central focus of civil rights activism. See N. Kelley 2004, 146–147; Bynoe 2004, 17–18.

123. See N. Kelley 2004; Kitwana 2002; Bynoe 2004; Boyd 2002, 2004.

124. See Michael Harris 2003, 101–124.

125. See Kern-Foxworth 1994, 61–113.

126. See also Public Enemy 1990.

127. Kern-Foxworth 1997, 14.

CHAPTER 6

  1. Cornell 1993, 1.

  2. Bhabha 1994, 191.

  3. hooks 2003, 28–29.

  4. hooks 1995, 211.

  5. P. Williams 1998, 73.

  6. Guinier 1994, 132.

  7. Guinier 1998, 256.

  8. Guinier 1998, 287.

  9. See also Overton 2002, 1574.

10. See Coombe 1998, 248–299; Scafidi 2005, 9.

11. See Leval 1990, 1111–1112.

12. Leval 1990, 1111.

13. See Arewa 2006b, 576–577; Tushnet 2004, 546.

14. See Arewa 2006b, 577; Demers 2006, 26.

15. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose 1994, 593.

16. Madison 2005, 414–415.

17. SunTrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Company 2001, 1269–1272.

18. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose 1994, 593.

19. SunTrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Company 2001, 1262.

20. See Vaidhyanathan 2004, 81–84; Lessig 2001, 19A.

21. Rubenfeld 2002, 2.

22. Rubenfeld 2002, 37.

23. For an application of this idea to DJ Danger Mouse's Grey Album, see Demers 2006, 138–142.

24. See C. Rose 2005, 993.

25. Posner 2002, 12.

26. See Ty v. Publications International Limited2002, 518.

27. Landes and Posner 2003, 123.

28. Landes and Posner 2003, 70.

29. Landes and Posner 2003, 158–159.

30. See Randall 2001, copyright page, 210.

31. See generally Conde 1996.

32. See generally Crips 1983.

33. See Taylor 2001, 28–62.

34. Spears 2005, 225.

35. See Randall 2002. Randall's second novel further illustrates this point. Like The Wind Done Gone, which rewrites Gone With the Wind, her Pushkin and the Queen of Spades (2004) relies on Pushkin's short story “Queen of Spades” and offers an even more highly developed hip-hop aesthetic. See Randall 2004, 217, 222. Randall's choice to sample Pushkin suggests that she continues to engage in hip-hop aesthetics despite the copyright barriers.

36. Randall 2001, 36–37.

37. Randall 2001, 40.

38. Randall 2001, 54.

39. Randall 2001, 51–52.

40. Randall 2001, 55.

41. Randall 2001, 185.

42. Randall 2001, 164.

43. Randall 2001, 194.

44. Randall 2001, 191.

45. Randall 2001, 202.

46. Randall 2001, 162.

47. Randall 2001, 164.

48. See Gates n.d.

49. Morrison n.d., 2.

50. Morrison n.d., 3.

51. L. King 2007, 59.

52. Best 2004, 270.

53. See Newton v. Diamond 2003, 596–597.

54. Randall 2001, 111.

55. Morrison n.d., 183.

56. See U.S. House of Representatives 2006; N. Kelley 2002; Kofsky 1998.

57. See Chang 2005, 439–445; Folami n.d.

58. See Conroy n.d.

59. See Berger 2001b, 10; Berger 2001a, 34.

60. F. Wilson 2003, 22.

61. See Corrin 1994, 6–8.

62. Corrin 1994, 2; Berger 2001a, 34.

63. Gonzalez 2001, 24.

64. Corrin 1994, 6–7.

65. Corrin 1994, 7–8.

66. Berger 2001b, 12.

67. Corrin 1994, 18.

68. See King-Hammond 1994, 23, 34; Berger 2001a, 38.

69. See Wilson 1994, 47–76. To further muddy the conceptual waters, the New Press copyrighted the docent and visitor comments they published. Therefore, they own the written expressions of these people's responses. This creates the question of whether their impressions have become part of the text known as Mining the Museum.

70. King-Hammond 1994, 30.

71. Berger 2001a, 38.

72. Rarely, if at all, do critical examinations of Wilson's work place it into the context of hip-hop despite Wilson's upbringing in and around New York City during the 1970s. Wilson worked in Harlem as an arts educator at the very moment hip-hop was created and became extremely popular throughout the city (King-Hammond 1994, 28). Even if he had no knowledge of hip-hop, his upbringing, during which he moved between the city and the affluent, white suburbs, and the resulting dislocations reflect the struggle many hip-hop generation youth feel in the post–Civil Rights era.

73. Schloss 2004, 36.

74. See Wilson 1994, 62, 68.

75. Berger 2001a, 33.

76. For a related set of images, see Glenn Ligon's Runaways series (1993).

77. Winter 1996, 188.

78. Winter 1996, 189.

79. Buskirk 1994, 112; F. Wilson 2003, 22.

80. Gonzalez 2001, 25.

81. Gonzalez 2001, 25.

82. Berger 2001b, 9, 12; Berger 2001a, 36.

83. Stocking 1985, 11.

84. Buskirk 1994, 109.

85. Berger 2001b, 15.

86. Berger 2001b, 15.

87. Berger 2001b, 18.

88. David Levinthal, although a white photographer, has produced work that functions similarly to that of Charles and Walker and is frequently included within discussions of their work and contemporary African American art.

89. Michael Harris 2003, 208.

90. Gonzalez 2001, 28.

91. Wilson 1994, 147–176.

92. Lessig 2004, 192.

93. See Chakraborty 2002.

94. F. Wilson 2001b, 54–55.

95. See Spivak 1994.

96. See Suggs 2000; L. King 2007.

CHAPTER 7

  1. Ellison 1995, 581.

  2. Suggs 2000, 284.

  3. Norfleet 2006, 368.

  4. Stagg R. Leigh is an allusion to the blues figure Stagolee or Stagger Lee, known for his violent behavior.

  5. Interestingly, literary analogs to Charles and Walker, such as Alice Randall, Paul Beatty, Colson Whitehead, and Darius James, found considerable support within African American literary circles. However, Spike Lee's film Bamboozled encountered similar resistance within the African American community. The film explores an African American television executive who proposes a modern-day minstrel show after his employer, a fictional television station manager, criticizes him for being insufficiently black. One effect of exploring hip-hop aesthetics through an interdisciplinary lens is that variations in audience response by genre or form can be contrasted and compared. On a slightly more optimistic note, Ellen Gallagher has covered massive canvases with hundreds, if not thousands, of exaggerated lips and eyes reminiscent of minstrelsy. She has also created massive collages of advertising images whose eyes and hair have been altered. Unlike Charles's and Walker's, Gallagher's works have been more warmly received over the past decade.

  6. Michael Harris 2003, 245.

  7. Golden 2001, 14.

  8. D. Murray and Murray 2005, 3.

  9. Copeland 2005, 76.

10. Troutt 2005, 1150–1151.

11. Troutt 2005, 1155.

12. Troutt 2005, 1205–1206.

13. For discussions about why indigenous cultures require alternative legal structures to protect their cultural property, see generally Boateng 2005; Brown 2003; Scafidi 2005; Strathern 2005.

14. For examples, see Coombe 1998, 299; Vaidhyanation 2004, 188; Lessig 2004, xv.

15. For another recent example of reliance on color-blind solutions that tend to ignore how race and other cultural practices influence the flowing of social power, to copyright's limitations, see Netanel 2008.

16. See Valdes, Culp, and Harris 2002.

17. Delgado 2003, 127.

18. Delgado 2003, 130–131.

19. Carbado and Gulati 2003, 1760.

20. K. Johnson 2004, 729.

21. K. Johnson 2004, 718.

22. K. Johnson 2004, 728–729.

23. See Schur (forthcoming).

24. Neal 2006, 635.

25. John Jackson Jr. astutely observes that hip-hop culture tends to present a “paranoid style” and “is invested in ‘appearances’ even as it simultaneously denounces them for being misleading” (2008, 148). Jackson's observation about hip-hop's ambiguous relationship with and critique of representation ought to make scholars wary of relying too directly on lyrical analysis or the direct words of hip-hop artists as the sole authority on hip-hop culture, especially as hip-hop artists frequently speak in a guarded or veiled manner.

26. Chang 2005, 251.

Share