Copyright Criminals, a documentary about digital samplings head-on collision with copyright law, features many of hip-hop musics celebrated figures—including Public Enemy, De La Soul, the Beastie Boys, and Digital Underground—as well as emerging artists from record labels Definitive Jux, Rhymesayers, Ninja Tune, and more. The documentary also provides an in-depth look at artists who have been sampled, such as former James Brown drummer Clyde Stubblefield, as well as commentary by another highly sampled musician, funk legend George Clinton.
I highly recommend the work of Siva Vaidhyanathan for thorough and accessible overviews of the issues at stake in the battle over copyright, digital access, and peer-to-peer networking.
Siva’s The Anarachist in the Library: How the Clash Between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System presents the clash between information oligarchs and information anarchists as not a mere technology war, but a battle that will define culture.
Siva’s book Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity is available online. Also check out this interview with Siva from Stay Free magazine.
I also recommed the blog Sivacracy.net
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