negativland

So I dig Craig Baldwin's films a lot. The first one I saw (on DVD) a few years back was Spectres of the Spectrum. The next one was Sonic Outlaws, which takes as its main topic or point of departure a lawsuit that arose between the San Francisco based band Negativland and U2 (or perhaps more accurately U2's record label Island Records). I'll spare you the details here but I will give a shout out to Negativland. Check out that site. Basically the band and the film explore the issue of copyright, fair use and artwork creation from the point of view of originality. The word "explores" might be too generous, so let's say that there is an exploration down a certain avenue (mainly an anti-copyright one). Legitimate issues are raised, some breezed over...it's a worthwhile conversation.