The film, which first aired on Independent Lens in 2007, takes an in-depth look at masculinity in rap music and hip-hop culture — where creative genius, poetic beauty, and mad beats collide with misogyny, violence, and homophobia.

Hurt, a life-long hip-hop fan, made the film after discovering how stereotypical rap videos has become. As he puts it, “The more I learned about sexism and violence and homophobia, the more those lyrics became unacceptable to be.”

Be sure to watch Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, starting Thursday July 28 and join the chat live with filmmaker Byron Hurt at 11AM PT / 2PM ET.

Fair Use panel at the Worlds Beats Life, Inc. Remixing Art of Social Change teach-in

Michon Boston is Community Cinema’s regional outreach coordinator in Washington, D.C. She helped organize a recent panel about legal issues raised in the documentary Copyright Criminals and filed this report.

Earlier this year, Community Cinema D.C. partnered with Words Beats & Life Inc. for its presentation of Copyright Criminals. WBL Inc. returned to the documentary last week for a discussion on fair use as part of their teach-in initiative, “Remixing the Art of Social Change:  A Hip-Hop Approach.”

The six-day event brought Hip Hop legends to D.C. including DJ Kool Herc, Kurtis Blow, and Common.  The final day at the Washington Convention Center was ground zero for a series of special focus panels and workshops.

David Maduli, who authored the ITVS Classroom curriculum for Copyright Criminals; DJ RBI; Hec Dolo; and Professor Peter Jaszi from American University’s Washington College of Law (who provided legal consultation to the filmmakers on fair use) all participated on a panel that addressed copyright issues in hip-hop music.  Speaking from their experiences, the panel gave a chronology on how the art of hip-hop music has been affected positively and negatively by intellectual property laws.

David Mulduli and Worlds Beats Life, Inc. founder/executive director Mazi Mutafa

David Mulduli pointed out how the Classroom curriculum for Copyright Criminals looks at the intellectual property issue from various art mediums, including art and fashion.  Garage Band is a tool he uses in the classroom where students “flip” an audio sample.  Mulduli said his students have exhausted the existing audio files that come with the software.  This is the point where the lessons from Copyright Criminals become teaching movements.

“Every kind of art now builds on something that came before,” said Peter Jaszi, faculty director of Washington College of Law’s Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Clinic in Washington, DC.  “If copyright owners claim too much, get greedy, the creative process is chilled.”  Jaszi believes there is power in numbers when artists come together.  They can collectively set the bar on how fair use will be used.

Copyright Criminals is being well received and considered an important resource in the hip-hop music-making community.  D.J. Christie Z-Pabon, of Tools of War, said, “The documentary is so amazing, you would feel honored to be in it.”

Check out ITVS’s classroom guide for Copyright Criminals.

On Wednesday, March 10  at 8:00 PM ET, join PBS Teachers and Classroom 2.0 for a special live webinar that will explore the implications of copyright and fair use laws in the classroom. The seminar will also explore how to share best practices in student media production.

During this event, you will have the chance to hear from and interact with filmmaker Kembrew McLeod, whose film Copyright Criminals recently aired on PBS’s Independent Lens, renowned law professor Peter Jaszi, and media producers and educators Chris Runde and Joe Fatheree.

Also, Annelise Wunderlich, national community engagement and education manager for ITVS, will present film modules and lesson plans based on the film and developed by ITVS Community Classroom.

At the close of the live webinar, you’ll have an opportunity to ask questions and have a better understanding of what kind of tools and resources are available for your classroom or organization.

Bookmark this site and join the live discussion tomorrow at 8:00 PM >>

P-Star (aka Priscilla Diaz) and her father Jesse Diaz visited Chicago to participate in the 2nd Annual Winter Block Party for Chicago Hip-Hop Arts, presented by Chicago Public Radio and hosted by hip-hop poet Kevin Coval.

The morning began with a screening of  P-Star Rising followed by a Q&A with Priscilla and Jesse. The audience at the Victory Gardens Theatre was full of families eager to hear about the struggles of navigating the often cut-throat music industry. After the Q&A, Jesse and Priscilla were treated to a performance by the Half Pint Poetics team, made up of 5th to 8th graders from Kuumba Lynx. Priscilla was deeply moved by the young talent and asked for some beat-box assistance from one of the young performers and showed her own skills with the mike.

The director of P-Star Rising –– Gabriel Noble –– joined Jesse and Priscilla during their week in Chicago for two screenings of the film for Chicago public high school and middle school students, courtesy of Cinema/Chicago’s Education Program.  Schools participating included Curie High School, Dumas Technical Academy, Lincoln Park High School, Chicago Vocational Career Academy, Austin Career Academy, and King College Prep.

After the film, host Kevin Coval introduced the guests while the students greeted them with an enthusiastic reception. Several students in the audience spoke about their own ambitions for careers in the entertainment industry. Priscilla and Jesse gave sage advice on learning the business, honing your craft and not giving up despite the many setbacks that aspiring performers always encounter. And Jesse added that you should ALWAYS have a demo on you because you never know what opportunities might come along. For instance, Jesse is starting a label and looking for talent and said that if anyone had a CD they wanted to pass along, he’d be happy to check it out.

Check out these clips from the Chicago screening:

The students asked all kinds of questions that adults usually don’t often ask at film festival screenings. They wanted to know how hard it is to have a father as your manager, to which Priscilla replied that there is nobody in this business she can trust better than her father to look after her interests. They wanted to know if director Gabriel’s presence got annoying. Jesse and Priscilla said that it was weird at first, but they came to trust him pretty quickly and got used to having him around all the time. Gabriel said that it was important to him to have their trust and that he let them know early on that if ever they wanted him to turn off the camera, he would. Jesse said that if it was up to him perhaps there were some things he would have wanted to cut out of the film, but both Jesse and Priscilla love the movie and feel strongly that Gabe did a great job.

When the students asked P-Star to spit a rhyme, she asked for volunteers to come up and perform for her, too. It took some coaxing from the other students, but two talented young people got up the nerve to join Priscilla on stage.  Gabriel gave the two students major kudos for getting up there. And Jesse reiterated that’s what it takes to make it: jumping on every opportunity presented to you.

- Naomi Walker
National Community Cinema Coordinator

Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes takes an in-depth look at machismo in rap music and hip-hop culture — where creative genius, poetic beauty, and mad beats collide with misogyny, violence, and homophobia.

Get broadcast listings and discover other films featured now during Independent Lens’s Music Month. Learn more >>

Hip-Hop premieres tonight, January 26, at 10:00 PM on Independent Lens on PBS (check local listings).

C-Note of Too White Crew performs at the Bluebird in Bloomington, Ind.

In the years leading up to this film’s release, I’ve wondered, like any filmmaker, how people were going to react to it. Thanks to Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake’s Super Bowl show, fines from the FCC was a top concern for many at PBS, and the topic of my film lent itself to some objectionable language. So for years while my film waited for an audience, I fielded people’s questions and comments.

“When am I going to see it?”
“White kids and hip-hop? You’re doing a film about wiggers?”
“Don’t you think we’re past this already?”
“Is that what my kid is doing?”
“It’s going to be on PBS?”
“Did you really interview Vanilla Ice?”

First, yes, I did really interview Vanilla Ice, and yes, he really did consent to the interview. To be honest, I found his cooperation surprising. Getting white people to talk about race was perhaps the most difficult part of making this film, and that difficulty doubled when it came to white rappers. I would have loved to interview Eminem, for example, but I had little success with anything but being brushed off by his handlers. The perception was that he had too much to risk. Too many people, too many hip-hop magazines, some of which were started by white people, might use it as an opportunity to go after him.

Blacking Up: Hip-Hop’s Remix of Race and Identity airs February on public television (check local listings)

The perception that race, as a topic for discussion, is bad for business is one that I encountered with every white rapper I spoke to with a market to their name. So those with a fan base that did agree to be in this film the people –– Sage Francis, Aesop Rock, and some of the others –– deserve some credit for putting the topic of the film above the safety of avoiding it. By doing so, I hope that they, along with all the film’s participants, are given a sincere listening to by viewers. Even Vanilla Ice, who has been at the butt of the joke for so long that his appearance in a television show has the effect of a laugh track, deserves credit. He’s the kind of person who just puts himself out there –– without thinking too much of the consequences. That may be naïve, but I think his perspective should be taken into account, at the very least because it is forthright.

In talking about my film with those that have not yet seen it, there is all too often a kneejerk response to side either for or against whites in hip-hop, as if the topic were as simple as choosing sides in a football game –– on one side, the color-blind participants, who just love the music for what it is; on the other side, the racists, who are mimicking, mocking, romanticizing, and capitalizing on it. Rarely is it so straightforward. Take the characters in the film and give thought to what they’re doing –– Sage Francis, Aesop Rock, Vanilla Ice, Too White Crew, Crack’d Owt, and Empire Isis, an aspiring female rapper from Bloomington, Indiana, who had to leave her high school after receiving death threats for “acting black.” They may all be white, but they’re not all simply racist or color-blind.

Robert Clift
Filmmaker of Blacking Up: Hip-Hop’s Remix of Race and Identity

Young@Heart

“I watched the documentary, Young@Heart, last week and was quite moved. The director has given a great gift to the people of North Hampton and around the world.”
Posted by: Roger Millnitz on January 17, 2010

“I am 51 and hope I have the vitality that these individuals do when I get up there in years. The one song that gets me every time is Fred’s tribute to Bob, ‘Fix You.’ It moves me every time.”
Posted by: Gail on January 17, 2010

“I am in my 70s and I loved this film. The segment where the group did a concert for the jail inmates young enough to be their grandchildren was just so touching to me that it brought tears to my eyes…”
Posted by: Christina on January 18, 2010

View more Talkback and submit your own for Young@Heart >>

Interested in music programs? Learn more about our month-long celebration of music >>

Copyright Criminals

“Amazing. The first documentary I have ever wanted to see a tracklist for.”
Posted by: Don on January 19, 2010

“The show was thought provoking, insightful, well researched, but unfortunately too short. I wish this show had been AT LEAST an hour and a half (I could have watched a 3-hour version). This edition of Independent Lens is what 99% of television is missing- individuality and intelligent reflection on modern music and art.”
Posted by: Zephyr on January 20, 201

“Why would copyright holders want to, in effect, tax this art form out of existence? They should look at creating rules that allow copyright holders to opt out or in and establish rules that create a creative pie that is sliced in an agreed manner and that divides up the profits from a record between sampling producer and talent, on the one hand, and sampled copyright holders, on the other…”
Posted by: Gwain52 on January 20, 2010

View more Talkback and submit your own for Copyright Criminals >>

Can you own a sound? As hip-hop rose from the streets of New York to become a multibillion-dollar industry, artists such as Public Enemy and De La Soul began reusing parts of previously recorded music for their songs. But when record company lawyers got involved everything changed. Years before people started downloading and remixing music, hip-hop sampling sparked a debate about copyright, creativity and technological change that still rages today.

Copyright Criminals premieres tonight, January 19, at 10:00 PM on Independent Lens on PBS (check local listings).

Learn more about Copyright Criminals and other special Music Month programs >>

Learn more about a recent LINCS partnership with WTIU-Bloomington, IN and the film BLACKING UP: Hip-Hop’s Remix of Race and Identity, which explores the tension between white racial identity and black cultural propriety at a time when hip-hop is redefining American life. Brent Molnar, program manager at WTIU, shares his thoughts about the film, which airs in December on public television.

As a Program Manager of a local PBS station, I was brought into the BLACKING UP project to assist the producer, Robert Clift, in creating a more conservative version of his original documentary, and to make recommendations for editing strong language and specific content that public television viewers might find objectionable. Initially, I thought my role with the documentary was to be fairly nuts and bolts – bleep this, pull that out, say this in a different way, etc.

What I didn’t expect, however, was the amount of historical content and the broad range of perspectives BLACKING UP contained. As a society, I think we sometimes gloss over the human experience, and may even begin to pocket people into different categories, just to be able to deal with everything that comes at us in a given day. When this happens, I think we lose part of the richness and depth that our culture really possesses. This can lead to us not only missing out on opportunities to understand one another, but to understand ourselves as well.

What BLACKING UP did for me was to bring into focus broader questions surrounding racial identity and authenticity. It added to the appreciation I have for my friends of different races, and it even changed the way I understand the white teenagers who shuffle through downtown with their jeans nearly falling off their waists. And so began many conversations with the project’s producer about how the doc’s central message could be communicated without including content which might be considered gratuitous.

At its core BLACKING UP really delves into racial identity and authenticity in a way that can not only help us to better understand the perspective of others, but also to better understand our own experience.

Brent Molnar
Program Manager, WTIU-Bloomington, IN

Kembrew McLeod, co-producer of COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS, answers questions from the audience with Tony Berman of Berman Entertainment and Technology Law, who is featured in the film.

From our first event at the Saratoga Springs Public Library in Saratoga Springs, New York on October 3 to our last two events on October 29 in Charleston, South Carolina and Indiana, Pennsylvania we’ve thrilled audiences with live DJs, hip-hop dancers and fascinating panelists from musicians to lawyers. Co-producer of COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS Kembrew McLeod told us “I feel honored to be part of the Community Cinema program which has allowed the film to be seen far and wide by a diverse range of audiences. Plus, it’s free. Who doesn’t like free?”

For more than 30 years, as hip-hop evolved from the urban streets of New York to its current status as a multibillion-dollar industry, hip-hop performers and producers have been reusing portions of previously recorded music in new, otherwise original compositions. But when lawyers and record companies got involved, what was once referred to as a “borrowed melody” became a “copyright infringement.” Through interviews with many of hip-hop music’s founding figures—like Public Enemy, De La Soul and Digital Underground—along with emerging artists such as audiovisual remixers Eclectic Method, COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS by Benjamin Franzen and Kembrew McLeod illuminates both sides of the debate, from traditional musicians who view sampling as pillaging to those who argue that the practice of borrowing is by no means new nor is it unique to hip-hop or even music: Think of Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans.

With OVER 50 free screening events from coast to coast audiences were able to sample the flavor of hip-hip and electronic music first-hand from some of the subjects featured in the film. The Philadelphia event featured worldwide DJ sensation based in Philly, RJD2 (RJ Krohn – pictured to the right, on the left). The photo is a TwitPic uploaded live from the event. Our event in Oakland welcomed DJ legend Jeff Chang. Local hip-hop radio DJs hosted events in St. Louis and Seattle. In Seattle, KUBE 93 FM DJ Hyphen who co-hosts “Sunday Night Sound Session” introduced the film. “Sunday Night Sound Session” airs every Sunday night at 10:45 PM. “J. Moore and I offer listeners the newest, dopest hip-hop from all around the country, including local music from our own backyard,” boasts DJ Hyphen. Tune in around the Puget Sound Region or online worldwide. DJ Hypen introduced COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS and left the audience with some things to think about while watching the film.

Read on for more video clips, photos, and community connections.

Northwestern University law professor Peter DiCola.

Our guest speaker at the Community Cinema event in Evanston, Illinois was Northwestern University law professor Peter DiCola, who co-authored the forthcoming book Creative License: The Culture and Law of Digital Sampling with filmmaker Kembrew McLeod.

We could not have asked for a better guest speaker when it comes to questions of copyright. DiCola was able to give in-depth answers that helped the audience understand legal issues in a clear and engaging manner.

In St. Louis, DJ Alejan talks about how the film exposes the many layers and areas of sampling that have never previously been explored on film.

Find more videos like this on Community Cinema Series St. Louis

Throughout the month, Community Cinema partnered with Future of Music Coalition to present COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS. Future of Music Coalition encouraged discussions about sampling and more as part of their 8th Policy Summit in Washington DC in early October. Regional Outreach Coordinator Michon Boston explains, “Fair use is … described for documentary makers, as follows:

Fair Use is the right, in some circumstances, to quote copyrighted material without asking permission or paying for it. It is a crucial feature of copyright law. In fact, it is what keeps copyright from being censorship. You can invoke fair use when the value to the public of what you are saying outweighs the cost to the private owner of the copyright.

– Source: “Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use”

Boston continues during her chat with Kembrew McLeod, “When it came to fair use, he appeared cautious about their selection process for COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS.”

McLeod said, “We didn’t want to ruin it for people following us through the door.”

Speakers and audience members in St. Louis feel the music after the film an discussion.

For the hundreds of people who attended our 60 free screening events for COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS nationwide, McLeod and Frazen busted the door open for musicians, artists, and others to explore the myriad aspects and themes of sampling, borrowing, mashing-up, and paying tribute. Holla!

COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS airs nationally on the Emmy Award winning PBS series Independent Lens on Tuesday, January 19 at 10:00 PM (check local listings).

Please join us in November for free preview screenings of the award winning paperfolding documentary BETWEEN THE FOLDS. Blurring the mysterious lines between art, science, sculpture and math, the film is an exhilarating adventure into origami, or paper folding, featuring works of art whose emotional expressiveness and engineering complexity defy logic.