As seems to be the norm rather than the exception these days over at The New York Times, they attempt to write a story on what is happening in our industry but fail to capture some of the most interesting aspects of the story, which would require actual research:

Girl Talk, whose real name is Gregg Gillis, makes danceable musical collages out of short clips from other people’s songs; there are more than 300 samples on “Feed the Animals,” the album he released online at illegalart.net in June. He doesn’t get the permission of the composers to use these samples, as United States copyright law mostly requires, because he maintains that the brief snippets he works with are covered by copyright law’s “fair use” principle (and perhaps because doing so would be prohibitively expensive). Read the article>>

Girl Talk is one of the subjects of a very cool collaborative documentary project, The Basement Tapes, led by Brett Gaylor. People around the country have been mixing up footage and creating scenes to contribute to the film, along with a host of activist activities around the issues The Times article seems interested in. These people have something to say, and they aren’t wrong because they can’t pay for high-priced corporate attorneys.

Additionally, the work of the Center for Social Media in Best Practices in Fair Use, including online video and documentary filmmaking, is aimed at educating makers about their rights–what they can and cannot do. Their projects aren’t just university moribund; their publications are adapted by sites like Blip.TV and Rocketboom, among many others. While the best practices refer primarily to video, they are easily adaptable to music and the kind of work DJ Girl Talk is doing. I find it hard to believe that Times writer Robert Levine even read any of this material as background for his query.

Maybe I’m more irritated than I would normally be because I read The Times article after read Scott Macaulay’s post about a 20-year veteran copyright lawyer who decided to stop blogging because of the sorry state of affairs. I’d like to see such a venerated publication as The Times actually report rather than regurgitating corporate mantra.

I know that I’ve posted about these items before, and in this context, it comes across as a rant, but seriously, how many thousands of people need to band together and voice their concerns before outlets like The New York Times will at least acknowledge it in their reporting?