The 463: Inside Tech : Girl Talk With Congressman Dolyle

June 19, 2007

Girl Talk With Congressman Dolyle

By far the most popular post ever at The 463 is "Perhaps the Coolest Moment in the History of Congress and Why it Matters".

The quick history: In March, I read a reference in a music blog about Congressman Mike Doyle name checking a mashup artist in his district who goes by "Girl Talk" during a committee hearing and was impressed. After all, I had seen Girl Talk's out-of-control live show a couple times and knew that he was the hippest DJ going. (We actually posted about him in January.)

So I found the video of the hearing, wrote up a quick transcription of Doyle's comments, and spread the word.

Fast forward to this week's issue of Newsweek. In it, respected tech columnist Steven Levy has brought together the two protagonists. Over hot dogs, the Congressman and the "not a DJ" remix artist discuss sampling, rights issues and how the legislative process works...

At our lunch, Doyle, 54 (whose own iPod is filled with the likes of Earth, Wind & Fire and Steely Dan), had a lot of questions for Gillis, 25. How many artists were sampled on his recent album "Night Ripper"? (Gillis: more than 167.) If he had to pay rights to every person he sampled, how costly would it be? (Gillis: who knows? But at the least, "we'd have to sell the album off the shelf for $100 a copy.")

He was especially interested when Gillis explained that part of his source material comes from a cappella versions of hip-hop songs included on the flip side of the musical versions—making them easier to mash. He's also been commissioned to make custom remixes of songs by popular artists. In other words, record labels are happy to get the attention that comes from mixes and mash-ups, but won't stand up for their legal right to exist.

The lunch's climactic moment came when the congressman asked how one could write a law "that would somehow square up with the 167 artists you've used and allow you to get on store shelves." Gillis said that he'd try to find a middle ground where some samples were OK because of fair-use provisions in the law and others paid for by a reasonable fee. The congressman listened, but admitted the odds were long for a Mash-Up Relief bill. "Some members don't even want to understand it," he said. "They just get a call from the industry saying, 'Bad'." On the other hand, Mike Doyle said he might catch one of Gillis's Girl Talk shows soon.

Posted at 10:10 PM in Digital Content Policy, Internet Policy | Permalink

The comments to this entry are closed.