TSOAF faced and battled legal drama between various recording labels. Balling said, “The months I spent dealing with legal issues…was just insane” (Hampton). The controversy and “insanity” felt over copyright issues makes a lot of sense. TSOAF is a group made up of both well-known and amateur artists, many of whom previously signed with record labels unaffiliated with TSOAF.
“Five members are under contract with other record labels, and when you are under contract, unfortunately, you can’t just run off and record whenever you want and release it on another label" explained Balling (Hampton). In essence, once an artist signs a contract with a record label, that label owns the artist, not to mention most of the artist's income.
Fair deal? Hardly. Why should an artist get stuck with a single label to represent their body of work? What if that label does not promote or encourage new techniques in producing music? What if that artist wants to experiment with sounds outside of the scope of what the record label (the staunchest pro-copyright activist) deems appropriate and popular?
In this case, the recording industries’ insistence on copyright could have potentially prevented a progressive creative work from ever existing. Luckily, the unanimous anonymity via animal masks sufficiently covered this legal issue and ultimately prevented serious infringement repercussions for all participants.
But what about when TSOAF went on four live tours? Could you imagine the vocalists trying to sing through a plastic mask? Could you imagine the instrumentalists playing with such limited vision that the eye-holes might provide?
Nah, the animal masks were ditched on tour. As much as the record label figuratively owns the artist, well, an industry just cannot literally control a person's physical body. As Balling states, "Record labels are only interested in the recorded product that they've paid for" (AD). And, unless I am severely misguided, a live performance does not necessarily fall into the greedy hands of monopoly record labels.
The record labels associated with participating artists might not have been too pleased with the live performances, but they couldn't prevent the performances, since TSOAF was legally protected by its own record labels throughout the years.
Furthermore, TSOAF switched record labels three times. Seriously? I didn't even know that was possible. I guess it is, in terms of producing different albums. But, at least, the switch to Equal Vision softened many legal issues, since "a lot of the artists involved are on Equal Vision" (AD). Frequently switching record labels was also beneficial in that "various labels exposes [TSOAF] to various channels of listeners" (Midget). So switching up the industry ownership provided a wider audience.
TSOAF did more than borrow artists from various record labels. Many of the tracks have samples from other pieces of artwork, not even all musical. For example, the title of the group's DVD is a direct quote from Gandhi: We Must Become The Change We Want To See. Shall we call that a form of sampling? Is it even noticeable as sampling, or is that quote so engrained in our society that the idea itself could be considered common knowledge, existing in a cultural collective understanding of well-known phrases?
Although most of the layers of sound were completely improvised on the spot, Balling had time to plan his own vocal sections ahead of time. He admitted to taking lines right out of Peter Pan (Hampton). He admitted to "rip[ping] off" a technique used by the band Massive Attack which generates a robotic voice quality (Hampton). He admitted to using poetry by Stephen Crane (Midget).
Yeah, that's right. Balling deliberately "stole" pieces of our pop culture and incorporated them into a collective masterpiece. But there's the kicker. It's already a collective. What's the big deal if some of the collective pieces are derived directly from an original source? That's the transformative process in effect. Since I found no evidence of TSOAF facing severe legal consequences on this aspect, I assume the vague terms of Fair Use protected the group's scattered but various incorporations of pop culture.
And what does Balling have to say about all of this supposed theft?
Just what most other artists have to say about their reasoning behind sampling. "I just, I love music so much, it's so much a part of me, that I just love to feel like the poeople that make me want to do art are also a part of what I do" explained Balling (Midget). Borrowing from other artists and reworking it into new artwork is simply a tribute to those influencing artists.
Wait, did I say simply a tribute? A tribute keeps alive those original influences, even if those influences lost popularity. Some even say sampling is the highest form of flattery. Growing up in the digital age, I must agree. There is so much accessible artwork now, that re-using a source can only increase awareness of its existence.
Sources:
Ruth Midget - http://www.rockmidgets.com/features.php?page=4&id=1590
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