8 Months

In four days I will have been three years since I took a plane back to the US from London. I was happy to, absolutely thrilled to get back to the life I knew, my friends, my room, my bed, American food, all that jazz. I'd had a mixed experience when I studied abroad. I lived with people who actively made my life a living hell and I didn't have anyone to talk to about it except my mom. I had one friend but her experience had been much different from mine and she had a friend from back home who was in the UK, so she didn't need to rely on me the way I needed her (even if I never said as much and still wouldn't if put in the same position.) There was a part of me that would miss certain aspects of London, but I was more than happy to go home. Perhaps the biggest thing that happened to me emotionally when I studied abroad was that I realized that my three and a half year dream, the thing that had gotten me through so much, was a dream I could never realize. I was never going to be a BBC radio DJ and I had no idea what other options I had. As the plane took off three years ago my future was a bit of question mark, even has I pushed myself to accept the possibility of being a lawyer. I was happy to get away from the place to that had so drastically changed my life back to the comfort I knew.
I never really thought I would go back for more than a visit. As the law became more of a reality my ever going back to live in London became less and less realistic. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to live in London. I continue to have mixed emotions about London, about my time in London. And if you had told me two years ago that I would be back in London, planning on staying in London for up to four more years, I would have laughed. Or, more likely, I would have told you that's a crack pipe dream, completely unrealistic. A year ago I would have had my fingers tightly crossed, mentally telling myself to expect two more years of legal torture and not to say anything too positive.
I'm sitting in a rather spacious student housing room (bathroom included!) thinking about how long I've been living in this room, in this city. If you don't include the three weeks I was home for the holidays I've been living in London for 7 and a half months. If you include those three weeks it's been 8 months which is a much tidier number. I had a professor once say that you can't really know if you like a place until you've lived there for a year. I would hasten to add that you can't really say whether you like a place until you've lived there for a year in non-student housing. Student housing warps one's perspective of the place you're living in for better or worse. Living in student housing as made me ambivalent about London because I can't really say I know what living in this is truly like. Living with other students is like living in a cocoon of booze and stress protected by security guards and protected from utility bills, rent, and council tax. I live in what can only be called a sketchy area, an area that if I had the choice I wouldn't have picked and that has altered my view of London. If I lived somewhere I had chosen, I might be less ambivalent. I can't say for sure, but I suspect I'd be more comfortable in my choice of city.
London is an unforgiving city. It's cold, it's mostly overcast, bus drivers can be rude, the people won't smile at you and actively avoid making eye contact with anyone outside of their social circle, and even in late May everyone seems to be wearing mourning clothing (unless they're tourists or African/Caribbean immigrants on Sunday.) There is some amazing and beautiful architecture and sometimes if the light hits the horizon just so London is even a little pretty. But mostly it's unforgiving and forces you to fend for yourself. I took a sociology class in my sophomore year and we discussed the idea that city dwellers are more estranged; more isolated from others than people who live in, for instance, the suburbs or a small town. I don't necessarily think that's true, but a sociologist wanted to provide a perfect example of that theory it would be London. Outside the people you know, you fight for yourself and no one else. It can be lonely, but as I repeatedly tell people, there is so much that London offers it can be a bit overwhelming. There is always something to do. So even if the people are always terribly hospitable and the city a bit unrelenting, you'll never be bored if you put your mind to it (that old Samuel Johnson comes to mind.)
I sometimes feel a bit isolated in this bustling city, a fact that perhaps adds to my feeling of ambivalence. But my reason for being here, my course of study, I'm not ambivalent about that. I get a geeky happiness from the research I'm doing, something I never felt in four years of undergraduate and one hellish year of law school. I keep telling people that the things I'm reading for my dissertation are things that I would read for fun and that's absolutely true. The only time that has happened previously was in my British history class senior year of undergrad. I have no particular theory that I'm trying to support, merely the idea that it's a good thing to write down popular music's history. It's important to remember a civilization's culture because in a 1000 years that's what the archeologists will be digging up. I get pleasure from what I do and above everything else that's what I think is really important. It's not often that one gets to follow one's bliss and I'm just so happy that I get to. I've also learned quite a bit. Ideas that I've been holding onto since high school have been altered, though not completely changed. Ideas that I had held as absolutes have become less absolute. I feel that for many people their world views get changed in undergraduate and mine didn't. My world views have been altered that much in my master's program, but they've been changed just enough to alter my perception of certain things I had taken for granted, at least when it comes to popular culture. Some things have stayed the same though. And that's not a bad thing. I’ve grown as a writer, as a thinker, as an academic and that to me seems the main point in any course of study (besides learning whatever it is you're supposed to learn.) My master's program hasn't been a structured as I am use to with academic programs and I have had to rely more on myself to learn things, for better or worse. My first semester was rocky because I didn't know what was expected of me, but now I know and I've become a better student for it. I've never really relied on professors to hold my hand (because I've never really relied on anyone to hold my hand but that's whole different kettle of fish) but having higher expectations placed on me and no hand-holding was difficult at first. I've since gotten used to it and while I sometimes worry my simple ideas (history is good, we should write it down before idiotic critics do) aren't 'worthy' of academic consideration, I remind myself that that's not the point and carry on reading about 1950s rock and pop music. I'm really happy with what I'm doing and hope that I get to spend three to four years diving further into this line of inquisition. And then maybe I'll get to teach young idiots about this stuff, students who think they know better and then turn around five years later and realize they really should have listened to that one professor who said they should give the Who a chance.
At the very least I'm here for another three months. I really, truly hope I'll be here for another three years. And since I'm really shit and ending things I'll leave it at that. (I'm also really crap at coming up with titles.)

Universal and Particular

Ever since I really got into British rock music I've been trying to understand why my favorites aren't more popular on this side of the pond. It largely made no sense to me that these bands, which I really liked and considered to be very talented, weren't having more success in my home country. Then once I got into the Kinks I continued to be dumbfounded that this revolutionary band hadn't made more of an impact in the US or in the UK for that matter. This mystery haunted me well into college before I started coming up with a theory of my own for why certain bands make an impact, or succeed at all, while others don't. What I came up with was the universal vs. the particular. Now this theory doesn't take into consideration the business aspect of popular music but instead, at least to my mind, acts as a predictor of what kind of music will be successful enough for the business side to even come into play. This is the first time I've actually written this theory of mine down and is really the first step in long slog of writing a PhD dissertation (or a least I hope it's the first step.) By posting this I'm hoping to help elucidate the kind of research/theorizing I am doing and plan on continuing to do for really the rest of my life. Popular music research can seem so amorphous that I hope that by providing this glimpse into my work that it becomes a little clearer.

Universal: Topics and themes that are well known to everyone; love, loss, loneliness, death. These are ideas that are familiar to everyone who has ever lived or will ever live. These are ideas that have been written about in literature for centuries, have been discussed amongst friends since language first arrived and have been at the heart of culture since the Ancient Greeks. Examples of a universal song in this line include [fill in the blank]. Another attribute that can make a song universal is the overall sound of the song. A danceable beat, an overall sound that is in tune with what is currently popular, or anthem-like orchestration can make a song with lyrics that aren’t very universal sound universal enough to fool a lay listener. An example of this kind of universal song is U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” The song is a reaction the Troubles in Northern Ireland and there is no effort to cover up the overtly political lyrics. However the orchestration of the song is such that if the listener chose not to engage with the lyrics they could be convinced that the song had no particular political message. Furthermore the anthem-like orchestration used in “Sunday Blood Sunday” was very much in line with the over-the-top orchestration that was being heard in popular music at the time.

Particular: One person’s experience of the world around them. Usually a song with a particular view uses more colloquialisms that won’t be easily understood outside of the culture that produced that colloquialism. An example of this is Blur’s use of the phrase parklife for both the name of their 1994 album as well as the title track. The phrase itself, which means “the act of not having a job or any means of gaining money except that of the dole”, would be unfamiliar to audiences outside of the UK who may not have any idea what the dole is. However colloquialisms aren’t absolutely necessary to make a song particular in its point of view. A song need only describe a life situation that isn’t relatable to those outside of a specific social, cultural, or economic situation. An example of this kind of particular song is the Kinks’ “Village Green Preservation Society.” In this song not only do the Kinks describe a very particular social and economic situation, life in middle class Britain after World War II, they also make cultural references that would be unfamiliar to those outside of the United Kingdom. A particular song may not reflect current trends in popular music, instead co-opting a style that has fallen out of style. An example of this would be fun. an American band whose debut album co-opted the sound Queen pioneered which, when it was released in 2010, was not in favor in popular music in the United States.

The Road to Here

London has been making me think a lot. Mostly about where my life is going. My Mom and I have agreed that, based on my schedule, it will make no sense for me to come back to the states until Christmas 2013. Obviously I will be in the States in 2012, but after that it will be a year before I come back to the US. And it's bizarre to think about. Surreal. I've been dreaming of going and living in London for seven years, but I think there was some part of me that never thought it would actually happen. The deeply pessimistic and cynical part of me that basically hates me was assured that I would end up living in DC my entire life. But now, it seems far more likely that I'll be living in London for the foreseeable future. And that has gotten me thinking about things.
Besides finally admitting my sexuality to myself and getting a tattoo (yes, I did that too) I've been spending a lot of time thinking about February of 2005. More specially I've been thinking about how different my life would be if I hadn't discovered the Killers. If I hadn't put my trust in VH1 to show me good music. If I hadn't visited my sister over spring break that year. If I hadn't discovered the Kaiser Chiefs. What would I be doing now if those events, which really happened in very short span of time, hadn't happened? Would I be drifting along, working at some fast food joint because I never found my purpose in life? Or would I have figured something out through therapy and being doing something I care about as much as I care about pop music? Would have I gone down the history path instead of the music? Would I have ever gone to London and would I be moving there now? It's a lot of what ifs, but not to be overly dramatic, I can pin point the path I'm currently on to a day. February 25, 2005, when I discovered the Killers. Some might say otherwise, but to mind if it weren't for that band I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing.
And part of me knows all of what I just said is ridiculous to a certain extent. One band can't and isn't the sole reason for me being where I am. At least four other bands played a part along with two professors, two high school teachers, my parents, and a general obsession with the UK. A lot has happened between February 2005 and the present to get me to where I am. But it doesn't stop me from wondering those what ifs. It doesn't stop me from thanking the powers that be for allowing things to happen the way they have. Because as stressed as I am at the moment, I couldn't be more thankful for the bands and music in my life and what they've brought me. It seems silly, but I really and honestly believe that without them I wouldn't be where I am. I would be in a lot worse place. And they'll never know it, but I'm glad they exist every day.

A Follow Up

So it's been a few days (five in fact) and mainly because I don't want to freak out my sister* and I'm going to make a few observations about what I talked about last time. And continue to be cryptic, it's more fun that way.

• The LBGT alphabet soup of labels is way too complicated. And yet not detailed enough. And lablely. However I have heard bi/pan/omni-sexuals referred to as unicorns so I've decided that if I were to ever label myself** I would call myself a unicorn. Because unicorns, as The Oatmeal and Cabin in the Woods have made clear, unicorns are awesome.
• Most of the advice I've read and most of the materials I have found on the web are geared towards people in high school/beginning of college, not people in their twenties. I know most people have defined who they are by this point, but as the one friend I've talked to about this pointed out, I'm a complicated butterfly*** so the fact that it's taken me this long to admit what I am is fine. However it's really annoying reading advice that's geared to teenagers who are dealing with coming out because they have the rest of college to come to grips with who they are. I'm moving to London for graduate school, it's not the same thing.

Those are all my observations. All two of them. Good to get them off the chest though.

*She seemed a little freaked out when we talked this evening about "the Twitter stuff" as she put it. I could be wrong.

**Which I don't plan on doing because I really and truly hate labels. My plan is that if I ever get a girlfriend I'll just...never tell anyone. God I hate confrontation. That's a whole separate blog post though.

***She didn't actually say butterfly. Complex person yes. Jasmine not the kind of person to refer to people has butterflies though.

All The Things I Never Say

There's an idea that I keep hitting up against in my therapy sessions.* Maybe not an idea more like a truth: It's amazing how negative experiences early on life have more of an impact on how you react and act in the world than any positive experience during the same time period.

When I was little (probably 8 or 9) I was convinced that I was suppose to be a boy. I didn't feel comfortable in the female world. There was so much confusion and no one was straight forward about anything. I loved girly things, but girls themselves were just too confusing. Boys on the other hand were straight forward. They said what they meant and meant what they said. So clearly, since I didn't really fit in the girls world that meant I was suppose to be a boy. When I told this to other people, including my mom, I was shot down. I never talked about it again.

I don't feel that way any more. Yes, women are still confusing as hell and I do sometimes wish I was a guy just to make my life easier, but I don't think I was suppose to be a boy. Instead what I got from people's reaction to my declaration of being the wrong sex was that you don't talk about those things. You don't talk about sex, you don't bring up how you feel about any of it. It's private and you keep it to yourself.

As a by-product I am very well known for being a prude. I don't talk about sex, I don't even like thinking about talking about sex. It's private and I keep my thoughts on the subject to myself. When friends in high school talked about masturbation and other related things I got uncomfortable. I couldn't understand how they could be so open about such things. Didn't they know the rule? When they made crude jokes I didn't laugh, I just felt weird.

All of this isn't to say that I don't think about sex. I think about it nearly every day. I don't do things other people do** and I've often wondered if I'm asexual, but the fact of it is that I am a sexual being. I've had sex actually. Didn't enjoy it at all. But again, it's something you keep private. The dreams and the fantasies are things you keep to yourself. You don't talk about them.

Well until now. Like nearly everything else I broadcast on here, I'm writing this because there are things I need to get off my chest. Like the dreams. Obviously I'm not going to be graphic, but this is something I've been wrestling with in one way or another since high school. So I think now is the best time to talk about it. To be blunt, really, incredibly blunt, I like girls. I've had exactly one boyfriend and numerous crushes on boys, but I like the Ken doll version of boys. Male genitalia immediately turns me off. Women on the other hand, not so much. I feel uncomfortable about everything having to do with sex, but the idea of having sex with a women seems far more appealing than sex with a guy. I can't say I've had any conscious crushes on women, but there are women who I've known that I found attractive and felt somewhat attracted to. But it's confusing.

There are pros and cons to "coming out." There's a whole...I don't want to say culture, but it's the best I can think of right now. There's a whole culture to "coming out" that I don't feel comfortable with. I support gay and lesbian and transgender/sexual rights because I see no good reason to not support it. On the other hand I don't really think I'm a lesbian. I also don't think I'm bisexual. I think I like girls, but since I don't have any real experience I can't say that's true definitively. I was absolutely positive I was going to like sex, but that didn't turn out the way I thought it was going to, so who's to say I'm right about this. All which is to say I don't want to come out as anything. I don't really even want people to know I think about these things.***

It's private I suppose. If or until I actually meet someone I want to be with it's all theoretical anyway. More than anything it's confusing and private. But it's a confusion that won't go away, which says a lot I think.

*This should be indication that shits going to get personal. Turn away if that makes you uncomfortable

**You know...that word I said like four sentences ago. Starts with a "m."

***Which may beg the question why I'm writing about this stuff in a public blog, but hey I never said I was consistent.

London Again (And So Much Stress)

I'm currently having a war with my brain (which is possible) over whether I should be excited about getting into Goldsmiths.* I mean, yes, I'm super excited. I don't have to deal with law school, I don't have to constantly question what I'm doing with my life, etc. On the other hand, the visa application process is terrifying.** The idea of having to sell all of my furniture is freaking me out. The mere notion that I may not come back to the US except for Christmas from here until eternity is making my brain melt. So that's why I'm having a war with my brain.

Yes, I got into Grad School. I found a week ago today and have slowly slipped into a state of existential terror over everything I have to get done here in Boston in the next month and a half. Because the thing is, most the big things that I need to get done before I can leave the country need to get done before August 1st. Big things like apply for a visa and sell my furniture. I was so happy when I first found out about my offer and now, while I am happy in kind of a theoretical way, I'm mostly just stressed out by everything. And that's the recurrent thought for me right now. I'm so stressed, I'm so worried, I'm so anxious, I'm so nervous. I'm nervous about the visa process. I'm anxious about what awaits me across the ocean.*** I'm worried about selling my furniture. I'm stressed about funding. On and on.

There is one thing I'm glad about though and that is the fact that I'm not doing anything this summer. I decided at the beginning of May that I deserved a summer off, a summer of doing absolutely nothing. And now with all things I need to get done before I move temporarily back to NoVA I'm so thankful I have nothing on my plate. The idea of having to deal with "moving to London" stuff and a job...not good. So I do have that.

And then of course I do have one thing, the thing that's stressing me out, that I'm thankful for. Getting into this grad program, getting to live in a city I love like none other is a blessing beyond description. Getting there and settling in may be stressful, but I really, really, really, fervently believe/hope that I'll be happy once I get to London. I'm going there with open eyes and no expectations. So let's hope this works out.

*Formally known as Grad School, when I didn't want to jinx things because I'm crazy like

**Oh sure, the first half is easy, but then they hit with money questions and biometrics. Shit get's real after the online part.

***See January 2010 to June 2010 for why I'm a bit anxious about what awaits me across the ocean

What Stresses Me as Opposed to What Stresses You

Because what I have to say is too long for twitter and because I've done enough emoting on there for one day I'm going to write here. As good an alternative as any. I feel like I've become a bitch machine. All I seem to do lately is complain and not do anything to change my situation. Granted a lot of what I've been complaining about are things that can't be changed over night or can't be changed at all. For instance I can't make Grad School move faster in telling me whether I've been accepted or not. There's a process and I can't change how quickly that process goes. Some might even say that by not uploading proof of my graduating from college until means that I've slowed down that process, though I don't think so since they didn't explicitly state that I needed to show them such proof. If they wanted it, they should have said so. Another example is law school. I can't change how law school works. I can't change their teaching methodology (the fancy word for which I can't think of right now) I can only change how annoyed it makes me. And thanks to other factors that I can't control or change, my level of annoyed-ness isn't going to be changing anytime soon either. So I'm left with being annoyed and not able to change anything. A final example is my family. I can't change my family. I can change my reaction to my family, but that's not something that's going to happen over night. In fact if I don't continue to see a therapist that reaction may never change and I'll have to live far, far away from them the rest of my life. Though I might end up doing that anyway. The thing is though, is that I hate complaining so much. I hate not being able to do anything about these things I can't change. I think because I spent so much of my life feeling impotent and not in control of my own life, I crave and demand a feeling of being in control. I don't like things being up in the air. Right now I'm waiting to hear from Grad School which will set off one of two chain of actions. The first chain is if I get in and the second if I don't. Depending on which chain is set off certain other things that are currently up in the air will be decided. For instance, if I don't get into Grad School I will apply to be on law review. If I do get into Grad School I will be able to flip the bird at my academic counselor and stop torturing myself with outlines. I will also have to figure out what I'm going to do with my stuff and other particulars, but I'm slightly more excited about not worrying about outlines. The other big thing that is up in the air is what I'm doing this summer. If I get into Grad School then the timing of my dream summer job won't be a problem and if I don't then it might be. And I hate all of this. I would like to know what is what and where is where and all that good stuff. Multiple people have commented to me in the past about how calm and collected I can be during stressful situations. What they don't understand is that exams and the like aren't what stress me out. It's not knowing about what happens next that stresses me out. I care more about the outcome of the exam than the actual exam itself, so while everyone else is relaxing after the last exam that's when I start freaking out. And right now all I seem to be doing is freaking out.

Other Alternatives

I just published an entry about why I like copyright. I actually wrote that entry 23 days ago, but hadn't bothered to publish it in this particular version of my blog until tonight. Seeing that entry and realizing how much has changed about my world view is kind of freaky. No, I haven't started disliking copyright* but I have changed my mind about law school. And I need to get this off my chest, so what better place than a blog?

From day one I've been, at best, ambivalent about being in law school. I was only ever partially committed to going to law school and was doing it both out of a desire to learn more about copyright and out of a fear of growing up. Besides Civil Procedure and being called in Constitutional Law**, there's not much I find more terrifying than growing up. I'm a responsible adult but I don't like to think about it that often. Anyway, my commitment to law school has never been that great. But I had always assumed that because I was in law school I was stuck going to law school and becoming a lawyer. While my other great fear*** is becoming my dad, I'm not someone who likes to quit. It's mostly out laziness, but once I've started something unless it's causing me extreme emotional distress I'm not going to stop doing it, especially when it comes to school. So I just assumed that since I had started down that path, that's where I would be going.

However over the past week all that has changed. I'm currently in the process of, honest to god****, applying to a grad program in the UK, have applied to a job at public radio station***** and have given my resume to another in a different city. Now nothing may come of any of this, a thought that I have to keep telling myself. And if nothing does come of it, then I'll finish out this year, sign up for classes for next year and try all of this again after I've finished law school.****** A small part of me is really hopeful though. I would like to be more than ambivalent about what I do on a day to day basis. It would be nice to be passionate about what I do or at least interested. For me the law has always been something I've been vaguely intrigued by, like biology or the moon. The fact that I tried to make more of it says more about my own self image than anything else.******* But I'm aware enough now that trying for other things seems like a viable option instead of a way to distract myself from my situation. Again, nothing may come of any of this. But I really hope I'm wrong to be so pessimistic.

Obviously I'm not going to know any time soon where my future is heading. Right now I'm planning on being in Boston for another two years at least. I'm trying to keep myself focused on getting through the rest of this semester and doing well enough that if I continue with the law I won't be in big trouble. However, besides my parents and my twitter feed, this blog will probably be one of the first things I tell if one (or more) of my alternatives work out. And then I'll have even more things to worry about. But for now I'm just concentrating on getting through the next few months with my head above water.

On a completely different subject, I've lost a little over 10 lbs over the past two months. Go me!

*Because I'll never stop disliking copyright

**My constitutional law professor, while extremely short, is terrifying. I hope to god I never get called

***"Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms—oh damn!"

****Not day dreaming about

*****Which I have almost no chance of getting

******I don't really think I'm going to be a lawyer, but who knows

*******Sorry if that sentence doesn't make sense.

Why I Like Copyright*

Law school does about fifty different things to ones brain so that by the time a person graduates from law school they think in a completely different way than had prior to law school. One of these processes is the slow realization that everything in your life, whether you realize it or not, is somehow related to the law. That makes sense to a certain extent. We, as humans, created laws** to that society would run in an orderly fashion and hopefully people wouldn't kill each other over petty disagreements as much. What law school does is lift the veil on just how much of a person's life is controlled by the law. The classes you take your first year in law school are the ones that touch a normal persons life the most, property and contracts in particular. Again none of this is surprising. But for me, the area of law I love the most*** is an area I knew from the get go had a huge impact on a normal person's life. Copyright and patents and trademarks**** are constantly around us. The diet coke I can't drink anymore, the Starbucks bag I have in my pantry, the Poland Spring water bottle on my night table, the computer I'm typing on right now, the Zune I use to listen to my favorite music, the posters I have hanging on my walls, the fan I have running 24/7 because my land lady is crazy, the books on my shelf, and piles of DVDs I have under my desk. All of these things fall under either copyright, patent, or trademark. You can look around your life and catalog hundreds of different things that fall into one of those categories. While I find copyright the most interesting, none are more important than the other when it comes to a person's everyday existence. How we consume life, outside of contracts and property, are dictated by the laws of copyright, patents, and trademarks.

With the internet we as a society have to some extent started to take for granted a very basic truth. The area of intellectual property, for better or worse, was created to protect and make money for businesses and people. As I tend to focus on copyright I tend to focus on the idea that copyright enabled artists to make money from their creations without having to find patrons. But anything that can be categorized as intellectual property can be said to make money for someone. With the ease the internet gives us in communicating and sending information, I feel that we've forgotten that idea. Copyright has been around for such a long time that it's basic purpose has been forgotten and taken for granted, depending on who you talk to. Our system for dealing with copyright is clearly not adequate, but what I find so fascinating is that the loudest people in this debate either want to make copyright even more backwards thinking or seem to have a naive notion of what copyright is about. I've said this before and I'll say it again, what the copyright debate needs is a middle ground. SOPA and PIPA are wrong and will do more hurt than good. But so is giving up on copyright completely.

*This is a writing exercise with two purposes. 1) Get my brain in the right place to write a cover letter and 2) have something related to law as my top entry for any potential employers looking at this blog.

**And societal norms, which are kind of like unspoken laws.

***And the one thing I don't get to study until next year.

****Otherwise known as intellectual property.

A Year in Culture 2011

There is a tendency, or I should say I have a tendency, to frame a year within a typical school year. A new year starts in September (or whenever a new year of classes start) and ends around May or June (or whenever classes end). I realize that a new year starts on January 1st, but when I think about my year I'm thinking between September and June. The summer kind of acts as a stand alone thing that I didn't account when I started this entry. However when one does a year end list, it's generally accepted that one is writing about the time between January 1st and December 31st of X year.

So how was this year culturally for me? Odd. I've discovered that I listen to fewer and fewer actual albums and more and more listen to playlists that are made up of songs from every year of music I have in my collection. This means that I generally associate a song not with its year of release, or even the album it originally appeared on, but with the year I listened to it and the playlist it was a member of. That's how I end up every year marveling at the fact that what I listened to wasn't actually released in the year I associate it with but usually with the previous year or even longer ago. Also, thanks mostly to law school, I haven't read all that much this year. I've probably watched more TV than I've read books which is kind of sad but I've found that as I get older I get even more picky about what I read and with the limited amount of time I now have for just about everything, the last thing I want to do is read some more after reading upwards of a 100 really dense pages of legal jargon. Moving to Boston though has been a boon for my theater going life. I've seen more ballet productions this year than I have in probably my entire life. I got to see Yo-Yo Ma perform with the Boston Symphony and hear Handel's Messiah live after years of listening to it on CD. I also finally got to see "A Doll's House" which is probably one of my favorite plays that I was assigned to read in high school (and just generally one of my favorite plays). And of course there are the hours of television I watched, some live, some on Netflix. This year has been a hodge-podge of low and high art for me some of which is difficult to categorize as "best" or "favorite." "Follies" is not one of my favorite musicals by Stephen Sondheim, but getting to see Bernadette Peters perform live is something that one doesn't forget very soon. Finally getting to go to a comedy gig and having it be one of my favorite British comedians is also a once in a life time experience, even if I can't say it was the best thing I've ever seen. 2011 though has been a year of cultural enrichment for better and worse. So now let's categorize it and par it down, like people like to do.

Albums I Actually Listened to This Year

As I mentioned I tend to listen more to individual songs on playlists as opposed to entire albums. However there were 5 albums I listened to this year. Generally speaking if I listen to an album it means I like it. And if it's on this list it's because I liked it. So here are my top 5 albums of this year:

1. "The Wombats Proudly Present...This Modern Glitch" by the Wombats
2. "The Future is Medieval" by the Kaiser Chiefs
3. "Aim and Ignite" by Fun.*
4. "21" by Adele**
5. "Welcome to Condale" by Summer Camp***

The Songs of 2011

This list, with the exception of the songs by the Kaiser Chiefs, the Wombats, and Adele, was largely aquired within the last 2 months. Up until then I was doing fine just listening to what I had been listening to since 2010. However around late October my current collection began to bore me so I sought out new music. This was done largely by seeing what my friends had been listening to on Spotify and by seeing what had been released recently and was good at least according to Zune Marketplace. And of course there was some music heard during commercials and on TV shows but most of those were not released in 2011, so they don't count. Here are the top 10 songs of 2011 in no particular order:

• "Cousin in the Bronx" by the Kaiser Chiefs
• "Rumour Has It" by Adele
• "Everybody Wants Somebody" by Patrick Stump
• "Raconte-Moi Une Histoire" by M83****
• "Still Life" by the Horrors
• "Ahead of the Wave" by Non-Commissioned Officers
• "We Are Young" by Fun.*****
• "Gangsta" by tUnE-yArDs
• "You and I" by Lady Gaga
• "Anti-D" by the Wombats

I did go see a few movies. Of the handful I saw in theatres the two I liked the best were "Fright Night" and "The Muppets" neither of which were critical darlings, though at least "The Muppets" did really well in the box office. Of the three****** books I read this year the only one I would recommend is How The Beatles Destroyed Rock and Roll the subtitle of which is "An Alternative History of American Popular Music" which goes a long way to explaining what the book is actually about. I couldn't possibly recommend what TV you should watch because much like music (which I feel I can recommend) what you spend your time watching is fairly individualized. Also, I watch the same five shows on repeat so I have a fairly narrow view of what's good and what isn't.

So that's 2011. I hope your year in culture was good and here's to next year being even better.

*Two things. The band is called "Fun." The period is part of the name. Also, this album was actually released in 2010, but since I've been listening to this and Summer Camp nearly non-stop for the past few days, I'm including it. Sue me.

**Adele is probably the only artist within my top music lists that was included by anyone else. As is typical my taste in music largely diverges from what is considered popular by other people.

***I discovered this album because a friend of mine from my time in London was listening to this album quite a lot on Spotify. thanks Jade!

****Everyone loves "Midnight City" so much. I think this song is much, much better. Besides, who wouldn't want to turn into a magical frog?

*****I first heard this song as a cover by the cast of Glee, so that's probably the only song I heard on TV that wasn't released in 2010 or earlier. However, as is typical, the original is better.

******This is a vast exageration. I don't know how many books I read this year, but it wasn't a very large number and far fewer than I would have liked.

Law School for Dummies

I am by no means an expert at the game of law school. I'm currently writing this entry as a way to avoid studying for finals* which is an indication of something.** However what is you need to know to succeed at law school you learn fairly quickly. Sure I may still be confused by what the hell a bailment*** is, but I do know some basics on surviving law school. If you're considering law school, I'd take these suggestions under your wing for the future.

Don't Live Alone There's a certain temptation, particularly if you didn't have the best roommate(s) experience in undergrad to live on your own at least for the first year of law school. This is a very bad idea. Particularly if you're moving to a new city (like I did) your roommates will be your first life line and even after you make friends will still people with whom you can bitch. If you're really lucky they'll be going to law school and even if it's a different school or they have different teachers you'll all be able to complain about how tough classes are and bounce ideas about what reasonable care**** is of each other after spending way too much time in the library. Living alone can be a death knell to your succeeding at law school because it can lead to introversion which in turn leads to insanity.***** You may not want to live with the same people once your lease is up in August or September, but having at least one other person to complain to will help immensely.

Make Friends, Even if it Hurts I am not an outgoing social person. It takes me awhile to make friends. However even the most introverted person will be able to make friends in law school for one very special reason: You're all going through mental bootcamp. It's a bonding experience that can't be underestimated. Making friends though, much like with having people to live with, will make the torture less torturous. Having buddies to moan to and drink with****** helps when the days get longer and the hours spent in the library become too much. Good friends will convince you that you're not making the biggest mistake of your life and may even help you get better grades. Humans are naturally social creatures, but law school proves just how valuable friends can be. So make some, even if socializing goes against every fiber of your being.

Don't Skip A Single Reading (or Class) Full disclosure: My freshmen year I did not have the best attendance record. I got better, but I always allowed myself to miss one or two classes in any given course in a single semester. Also, keeping up with reading was not always my forte. Just ask my Ancient Greek history professor. However if you want to have any hope of understanding the material presented in law school, let alone doing well on your exams, you have to do all of the reading. If that means sitting in the library for four+ hours so be it. First of all there is always the chance you'll be cold called on******* in class and trust me, it's not fun trying to explain a case you haven't read. Secondly, as confusing as some of the judges can be, reading the cases is vital to understanding the underlying principles at work. You can read all the chestnuts on torts you want, but if you don't at least know the basic outline of a case (which, depending on the era in which a case was written is all you're going to get) those summaries won't help you a bit. The same goes for classes. Yes sometimes it seems like the professors let students meander with no really direction into a land of slippery concrete,******** but ultimately it's to your benefit to go to every single class. You just never know when the professor is going to cut off the idiots and make sense of future interests.*********

Don't Freak Yourself Out Law school is hard. It's intense and all consuming. However you'll only make it worse for yourself if you psych yourself out. Whether that's by buying into some garbage BarBri is trying to sell you or watching "The Paper Chase" you're doing yourself a disservice if you let the stress get to you too much. Relax every once in a while, have a beer (or five) on a occasion.********** Go see a movie with friends or go to a museum if that's your thing. Spend an entire day doing nothing. People will go on about how you have to study every day or you're going to fail everything, but that's simply not true. Relaxation is just as important as studying if you want to succeed at law school. And not relaxing ends badly. Usually the people who burn out the quickest are the ones who didn't take sometime to do nothing. Law school is a marathon, not a sprint. Take sometime to smell the flowers.

So that's my advice. If you do plan on going to law school you'll hear a lot of variations on what I've said and some real gunners telling you to hole up in the library and never leave. Ultimately you do what's best for you, otherwise you'll leave school with a massive amount of debt wondering why ever thought this was a good idea. Best of luck either way.

*Evil, evil finals

**Namely not wanting to study

***Contracts. I'm pretty sure that's from contracts.

****Reasonable care is dependent on your judge. Much like everything in negligence based torts.

*****This isn't necessarily true. But it could happen. Law school does funny things to one's brain.

******The first of many times I will mentioning drinking. There's a reason lawyers are considered alcoholics.

*******This is when a professor calls on you out of the blue (aka you didn't volunteer) and asks you to explain the facts of a case. It is hell.

********True story. Someone brought this up in torts. It will never die.

*********Property. I could go on, but it's confusing.

**********So much drinking. Also, you don't have to drink like a fish to have fun in law school. It's just most everyone else will be because that's just how stressful law school is. However a designated driver/walker is always good, so if you don't want to drink that's fine.

Brain Poking

Towards the end of my freshmen seminar the teacher, Prof. Campbell, started using a more Socratic based method in discussing the novels we were reading. I found this incredibly annoying because a) I like straight forward answers to the questions I ask and b) to my mind it became more about how well I and my classmates could b.s. and less about actually knowing anything. I reported this back to my dad who sagely nodded his head and said "that's the method they use in law school. If you don't like it now you probably shouldn't go to law school." I nodded back and added that to the very long list of reasons why I wouldn't be going to law school.

Three months in and I can't say my opinion of the Socratic method has changed all that much. I still find it annoying when my classmates use the method to try and show off how smart they think they are but I can also see why it's used in law school. The point of it, at least to my mind, is to try and get you to see both sides of an argument or at least see why a case or rule has been formulated the way it has. Granted most of my classes don't use the method as the only way of teaching (because at least two my classes, contracts and civil procedure, would fall apart if they did). Particularly in torts* though it makes sense for the professor to probe your mind with open ended questions because so much of torts is speculative and opinion based.** If you can't see both sides or at least understand how the other side might think you'll be screwed as a lawyer when it will be your job to predict w hat the other side will say.

Still because I spend between 3 1/2 hours and 2 1/2 hours four days a week thinking in this manner*** I have a far lower tolerance for intellectual "discussions" than I ever did in college. Talking theory is all well and good when you haven't been doing it all day, but when you have the last thing you want to do is go home and poke at your brain some more. Because that's what it feels like. It feels like your teacher has been poking your brain for an hour and ten minutes. And that's what law school is for the first year or so. Brain poking.

*McDonald's coffee spill case. Liable. Theft. Battery and assault. Trespass. Car crashes. Falling on your butt in a restaurant. The vast majority of cases that aren't criminal cases are torts cases.

**Do you know what a reasonable person is? 'Cuz trust me when I say, that definition is not at all clear and largely dependent on the judge. That's what I mean by opinion based.

***Plus the countless hours I spend in the library. I swear I spend more time in that place than I ever did in undergrad.

Adventures in Public Transportation pt 2

I am not naturally a bus person. I will use a bus when I have to, but I prefer trains to buses. There's something about not having to deal with traffic that makes traveling just so much nicer. I would say, and this really is a personal opinion, that by and large London and Washington are cities where you don't have to use the bus system unless you're feeling really lazy* because both cities are very walkable. I could pretty much avoid buses in London because I could either walk or I could get there via the Underground and the same can be said for DC by and large. Boston is something else though.

Boston as the T which is combination of light rail and subway largely depending on what line your using. I live about five minutes from a Green line T stop, but I've also been on the Red line (because that's the most convenient line out of Harvard) and I would say the T is largely on par with the Metro or the Underground. But unlike those two subway systems, which largely take care of any transportation around their respective cities, the T's main goal is to get people into downtown Boston and then out to major points of interest and/or suburbs. Unlike with the Underground or the Metro, there isn't a lot of intersecting of rail lines so if you want to get from point A to point B and you have to switch rail lines you're basically stuck going into downtown, switching lines**, and then heading out to where you actually want to go. That is if you're unwilling to use buses.

I think one of the reasons I don't like buses is that they seem more unreliable than trains. However because of the way the T works, buses and trains are basically on par for their unreliability in showing up on time.*** And because of the way the T is laid out half the time it's quicker to take a bus, even factoring in traffic, than taking the train because the bus will be more direct than the train. Since I've been here in Boston I would say I spend an equal amount of time on buses and trains where as in DC or London I spent more time on trains than I ever did on buses. The buses get more crowded more quickly than the trains, but in terms of time it makes more sense to try and find a direct route on a bus than taking a circuitous route on a train.

It's interesting though. I would say that the T is equally dysfunctional as the Underground and the Metro, so I feel right at home. The biggest difference for me is how often I take the bus when I really do prefer trains.

*Or it's a rail replacement service

**Or switching from one branch of the line to another (yay for the Green line having four different branches)

*** Because you have no idea when a train or a bus is going to show up. At least with the buses you know they're late and can reconcile that in your mind.

My First Week

It's difficult to write about something your ambivalent about. When I was in undergrad the papers I procrastinated on the most were the one's I either thought I could get away with writing at the last minute or papers I didn't feel strongly about. Introductions were always annoying but topics I didn't really feel strongly about...well those always got short shrift. In a not-so-good-way that's how I feel about my first week at law school.
I had a proper melt down at the end of my first day questioning the meaning of my life etc but the rest of the week I just felt ambivalent. I don't know if I really like it and I don't know if I'm meant to be doing this. I do the work I have to do (which is in fact just a lot of reading right now) but I mostly feel like I'm drifting through the work and the classes. I like most of my teachers and I mostly like most of the classes. My fellow students are mostly alright, though some are just completely obnoxious and make me want to do some kind of bodily harm to them. Like I said, I mostly just feel undecided about this whole thing. It's only been the first week and there's every chance I'll change my mind. Right now I'm just waiting for something to spark so that this drifting ambivalent feeling will end.
I will say this though: My roommates continue to be fantastic. I'm sure the honeymoon period will be over sooner rather than later, but they're straight forward about housekeeping things, they're smart and hardworking, and best of all I know if they have a problem with the way I act they'll tell me. So that's a bright spot in an otherwise hazy life.

The Drive and Boston

A quick summary of the drive up to Boston. It was semi-stressful (yay flash rainstorms on the New Jersey Turnpike!) and long. It was not interesting save for the flash rainstorm on the New Jersey Turnpike. Mom and I made it to Boston in one piece with only a minimal amount of getting lost (tricksy Boston roads are tricksy). I was more stressed out by unpacking and moving everything in than by the drive to be honest. And moving in and unpacking was incredibly stressful because I have no organizational skills or sense of space. Thankfully the major things (furniture, huge boxes) were taken care of by a moving company and Mom was there to help unpack a bit before leaving. Her leaving was incredibly difficult but was made up for in spades by the arrival of roommate from Buffalo (Melissa)'s friend arriving. This made getting to know Melissa ever so much easier in a weird way. Melissa is very cool and kind of reminds me of another friend of mine who's hung on despite my tendencies to not communicate with people since high school.
Boston. Boston has confusing roads and tiny tram cars. However I feel that by the end of this school year I'm going to like Boston at least as much as I like DC (though not as much as I love London.) There are more Dunkin' Donuts in this city than there are Starbucks in any other city which is kind of awesome. The law school is right across the way from a Dunkin' Donuts and there is one across the street from the T stop I get off of to get to school. That's how popular Dunkin' Donuts is in Boston. However they do have Trader Joe's in Boston and I have mastered the bus system well enough to get to the Trader Joe's close to me. And just past that Trader Joe's is the nearest Jewish neighborhood which means there is a fantastic bagel place I can go to for breakfast before I go grocery shopping. That and many other reasons is why I think I'm going to like Boston come the end of the year.
Both of my roommates are awesome. One actually enjoys cleaning the dishes and the other says what she thinks and doesn't give a damn (though really that's true for both of them.) They're mature and smart and don't believe in petty drama. They are, basically, the perfect antidote to last year's roommate situation. I hope everything continues to go as well as it has been for the past few days, but I have high hopes that they will. Tomorrow I find out if the rest of my section are as awesome as my roommates.
That is all for now. I have my second day of orientation tomorrow which hopefully will be less dull than the first day. Quickly though one last thing: I love how cold Boston is or at least how much colder it is here than in Virginia. Bless the North.

Doubt

I have been told from a young age by my mother that I was smart. From a slightly older age I have been told by my mother that I am smarter than most people. I've never really believed her though. I didn't get the same grades as the identified smart people I knew and I just assumed that meant that while I might be smart, I wasn't necessarily "gifted." I was lazy and smart enough to get away with that. This past summer though I realized that what my mother has been telling me all these years is true. I am smart. And if you've been reading this blog long enough you know I don't like to compliment myself or give myself any credit for anything. But I am smart. I am extremely smart. And for whatever reason that scares the pants off of me.
I started orientation at law school today. It was basically the same shit you here at any orientation anywhere. Study. Do the reading and do the necessary work. Don't over tax yourself. And read. As one of the people I met afterwards said, I wouldn't be here if I didn't know that's what you have to do. I know I have to read. I know I have to study. I also know I remember the outline of a court case I read a month and a half ago, so yeah. I kept wondering while 2nd year students were talking about their experiences "what the hell have I gotten myself into? Is everyone here that thick?" I'm not trying to diss these students, but the advice they were giving is lame and doesn't apply to everyone and shouldn't be taken as gospel.
I spent a better part of the drive from my grandparents' house to Boston wondering if I made the right choice with my life. Law school costs a bundle and I can't tell if my heart is really in this. My roommates have been fantastic though, so I hadn't really been thinking about this nagging doubt until today during orientation. I know I can't guarantee that I've made the wrong choice until I've been through at least the first semester, but right now things are still up in the air for me. My number one hope is that I haven't made a terrible choice that I'll regret thirty years down the line or that I'll be too scared to abandon this bad choice (and end up regretting thirty years down the line.) But we'll see.

Nore's Legal Series - Mashups and Remixes

Music Mashups: Testing the Limits of Copyright Law as Remix culture Takes Society by Storm by Emily Harper
Mashed Up Videos and Broken Down Copyright: Changing Copyright to Promote the First Amendment Values of Transformative Videos by Andrew S. Long
Using Social Norms to Regulate Fan Fiction and Remix Culture by Steven A. Hetcher
15 Megabytes of Fame: A Fair Use Defense for Mash Ups as DJ Culture Reaches Its Postmodern Limits by Aaron Power
The Girl Talk Dilemma: Can Copyright Law Accommodate New Forms of Sample-Based Music by David Mongillo

In the case of remixes and mashups, there seems to be fine line between the two genres and both are connected by the use of sampling of other works. Remixes can be described as songs where the instrumental background of the original song has been manipulated in some fashion (whether it has been completely recomposed or simply altered in some way) while the vocal line remains largely unchanged. Mashups, whether they are video mashups or song mashups, take elements from two or more different original composition and “mash” together elements from the source material to create an entirely new work. Remixes tend to be created for clubs and originated within DJ/club culture while mashups, particularly video mashups, are an extension of fan culture and can be seen as critiques on the works from which they are borrowing.
While both remixes and particularly mashups stem from a culture of sampling, there is a distinct dearth of case law concerning these two genres. As with sampling this can largely be attributed to the fact that neither the creators of remixes and mashups nor the original artists wish to help create any kind of precedent whether it be negative or positive. While television and movie production companies have taken steps to regulate the use of their copyrighted materials (largely by pressuring websites such as YouTube to take down any potentially offending material) no actual court cases have been presented. This has left lawyers and academics to postulate how best to deal with remixes and mashups without the worry of creating precedent that would favor either side.
The overall sentiment from legal academics is that to properly deal with the issues presented by remixes and mashups, copyright law as a whole needs to be overhauled. However experts are divided as to what direction such an overhaul should head in. One option would be to lean towards a more utilitarian view of transformative works. As it stands now, it is very difficult to argue that a work, such as a mashup or remix, is in fact transformative and therefore would fall under the fair use doctrine. According to the article by Aaron Power, mashups in particular should be analyzed as “quasi” parodies and like parodies should be able to use the fair use defense if and when such a case is presented to the courts. The other option, for those scholars that believe that mashups and remixes do not fall under the fair use doctrine, would have Congress or the record companies setup some kind of compulsory licensing system. Under this system creators of remixes and mashups would use their already existing community standards to ascertain what percentage of their income would be given back to the original authors. The other option concerning compulsory licensing would see a blanket licensing system similar to that used by BMI and ASCAP where mashup and remix artists would pay an annual fee for the right to sample copyrighted material. In both cases amateur mashup and remix artists would not have to pay these fees because their creations “cause no harm” and in fact should be legalized.
While it seems that legal scholars tend to prefer a softening of the definition of transformative work to include mashups and remix, there is no clear consensus as to how the genres of mashups and remixes should be treated under copyright law. The only agreed upon fact is that copyright law must be changed to deal with the issues presented by these two genres.

Nore's Legal Series - De Minimis

Somewhere in that title should be the word sporadic. But anyway here's a definition of de minimis (from Wikipedia): "a Latin expression meaning about minimal things, normally in the locutions de minimis non curat praetor ("The praetor does not concern himself with trifles") or de minimis non curat lex ("The law does not concern itself with trifles").

Newton v. Diamond (2005, 9th Circuit) and Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. UMG Recordings, Inc.

The court affirmed the lower court’s (District Court for the Central District of California) grant of summary judgment for the defendants. Both the District Court and the 9th Circuit found that the sampling in question (a 6 second clip featuring three notes) lacked sufficient originality to be protected by copyright and that the use of the clip by the defendants was de minimis. In finding that the use of the clip was de minimis the court stated that “no reasonable juror would find the three-note portion of the composition used by the [defendants] was a quantitatively or qualitatively significant portion of the composition as a whole.” While the prosecution showed evidence that the technique used in the performance was unique to the original performer (the “Newton technique”) that because the defendants had licensed the sound recording what was in question was whether they, the defendants, had infringed on the original composition. Both courts found that the defendants had not infringed on the original composition because the clip that they had used was de minimis.
Based on this case, and the case of Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. UMG Recordings, Inc. from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, in deciding whether a case of infringement is de minimis or not the courts use the test that a work is de minimis “only if the average audience would not recognize the appropriation.” In the case of Newton v. Diamond the court ruled that it was de minimis use not just because the sample used was relatively short in length but because an average listener wouldn’t know that the sample had been taken from a different larger work. In the case of Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. UMG Recordings, Inc. the court found in favor of the plaintiff because the section that had been sampled, while relatively brief, is widely known to the general public and is considered one of the most sampled pieces of music within the rap genre. As such the general rule of thumb within the courts in declaring whether or not a work is de minimis is whether a general audience would be able to distinguish the work if it were copied and then incorporated into another work. “Even if the similar material is quantitatively small, if it is qualitatively important the trier of fact may properly find substantial similarity” (from Nimmer on Copyright) and the inverse is true for finding a work de minimis. Ultimately whether a work is de minimis or not is up to the specialist reviewing the work.

Nore's Legal Series - Sampling

I haven't been blogging. However that doesn't mean I haven't been writing or doing things. In fact I've been writing about various legal cases having to do with various legal ideas and issues pertaining to copyright. It's hella fun and I thought some of you might enjoy it. I've only written about three topics, but they're fairly lengthy, so that makes up for the sparsity. If you get confused by a term or want more details, there's Wikipedia and dictionary.com. Enjoy!*
The practice of sampling within the rap and hip-hop music communities has been around since the late 1980s and since that point the issue of copyright and sampling has been something that has largely been avoided by the courts, at least when compared to the output of music created through the use of sampling. Since the advent of sampling those few cases that are either pursued by the original artist or manage to make it to court have been dealt with in a variety of ways by judges. Up until 2005 with the Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Films case judges could take one of the two different methods or combine those methods to reach a ruling. The first method would be to use the substantial similarity test where the song that was created with the use of sampling would be compared to the original song from which the samples were taken. In comparing the two songs the judge would use the criteria of whether or not the songs were similar in message, tone, and audience to find whether or not the songs are substantially similar. The other method in trying cases of infringement through sampling would be to use a de minimis analysis. This would involve the judge looking at the particular sample and determining whether the sampled used constituted a qualitative and quantitative part of the original song. If the sample did not, and would not be recognizable to an ordinary listener, then the case would be dismissed. Normally judges would use a combination of the two methods, as can be seen in the case Newton v. Diamond where the judge used a combination of the substantial similarity test and the de minimis analysis to determine that no infringement had occurred. However Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Films created a new bright-line rule which aimed to simplify the issue of whether or not sampling constituted copyright infringement.
In Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Films the judge ruled that in cases where the artists admit the sampling has occurred that “no substantial similarity or de minimis [inquiries] should be undertaken.” This rule would only apply to digital sampling, which makes up the majority of sampling done within the rap and hip-hop communities. The judge also stated that simply an artist should “get a license or do not sample.” In this case the judge was implying that any kind of sampling, no matter how small or even potentially unrecognizable, goes against copyright law and should be considered infringement (“even when a small part of a sound recording is sampled, the part taken is something of value. No further proof of that is necessary…”). Again, this rule would only apply to digital sampling.
In light of this case, as well as Newton v. Diamond which was decided in the same year as Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Films, a number of scholarly articles have been published discussing the merits of this bright-line rule and the way copyright law in general deals with digital sampling. While all scholars agree that the law needs to better incorporate the idea of digital sampling, the exact method of dealing with sampling is not as widely agreed upon. Some scholars support the Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Films others, including Nimmer, believe that the judges were wrong in many of their conclusions namely the dismissal of the use of de minimis analysis and substantial similarity. In another article written by John Schietinger in the Fall 2005 issue of the DePaul Law review, the author vehemently disagreed with the judges dismissal of de minimis and substantial similarity analysis instead stating that a de minimis analysis should be conducted for issues of sampling. In doing so the author stated that it should be found whether the sample constitutes a trivial portion of the original song, and whether the sample is quantitatively recognizable within the context of the alleged infringing song and whether the two songs are qualitatively similar. Ultimately though, as the judges noted in their decision for Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Films “where one stands [on this issue] depends on where one sits” and it is unlikely that the issue will be fully resolved any time soon.
Finally it should be noted that even with the 6th Circuit bright-line rule, most cases of sampling are settled out of court or “ignored” by artists within the community, particularly if the artist sampling isn’t well known or the song itself is not terribly popular.

*I feel I should point out that this is not legal advice, more a summary of how sampling and other ideas have been treated in court along with a little bit of analysis by yours truly. As with anything I write about the law, don't take it as authoritative more the thoughts of a pre-law student. Basically: I don't have a degree, so hire a real lawyer if you need real legal advice.

What I've Been Doing

I freakin' love bullet points. They allow me to not write real paragraphs. Yay bullet points.

• My friends got me hooked on Supernatural so I spent the better part of the last month watching every episode from the past seven seasons instead of doing important things like studying. And studying. I'm now entirely caught up (except for the episodes that haven't aired yet, because that would be magic and I'm not magical yet) and am a huge dorky fan of the show. Thanks Heather, Lauren, and Ana!
• I have finished my last and finale semester of undergraduate studies. I have somehow passed all my classes despite the marathons of Supernatural I engaged in right up until finals and will be graduating this Saturday. It's terrifying and completely normal at the same time, largely because this is not the end of my academic career, merely the last part of one particular stage of that career. Thank god I have law school to worry about otherwise I would be imploding right about now. Moving on.
• Acting as furniture for one dog and coping with the fact that my other dog is blind. I've also been cleaning house for the impending arrival of my grandparents but that takes up less of my time than being furniture for my older (and not blind) dog.
• Have I mentioned law school? Yeah, I've done two entrance interviews for federal loans and am slowly building up the confidence to contact people to ask if they want to be my roommate. Speaking of which...
• Cursing the names of my former roommates. I really and truly dislike them at this point. But back to law school...
• Actually, not so much back to law school as related to law school. As we know I want to go into copyright law when the time comes for me to actually get a job. And now, thanks to a friend's brother's friend's mom I can say I'll be learning the inner workings of copyright this summer. Starting May 16th I'll be working at the Copyright Office and I couldn't be happier. Granted this means I won't be working at WPFW this summer (in all likelihood) which is kind of sad, but I'll be working at the freakin' Copyright Office. How awesome is that? Super awesome, that's how awesome.
• I've watched the pilot and first non-pilot episode of Twin Peaks. By this time next week I'll probably be done with the first season and asking myself whether or not I should actually watch the second. Damn you Netflix, damn you to hell.

That's it. I'm graduating this Saturday and having yet another nose job a week from yesterday and then I start my unpaid internship at the Copyright Office on the 16th. I predict that this will be a good summer. Or at least an interesting summer. We shall see.