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By Duke University School of Law
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Get instant insights and key takeaways from this YouTube video by Duke University School of Law.
The Case Study: Kanye West and The Legendary KO Song
📌 The lecture centers on tracing the 100-year history behind the powerful Katrina protest song, "George Bush doesn't care about black people."
🎤 The song, created rapidly by hip-hop duo The Legendary KO, sampled Kanye West’s hit "Gold Digger," which itself sampled Ray Charles’s "I Got a Woman."
🗣️ Kanye West uttered the phrase during a televised Hurricane Katrina relief telethon on September 2, 2005, criticizing the media's portrayal of Black victims versus White victims.
Musical Lineage and Transformation
🎵 Ray Charles’s 1955 song, "I Got a Woman," is credited with birthing soul music by fusing rhythm and blues and gospel, shocking some by substituting the worship of the divine with the worship of a woman.
⛪ "I Got a Woman" is traced back to the hymn "Jesus is All the World to Me" (1904) by W.L. Thompson, and more closely, to the 1953 gospel song "I’ve Got a Savior" by the Clara Ward Singers.
🔄 The message transformation is significant: the exalted savior becomes an amorous lover (Charles), then a grasping gold digger (West), and finally, a political critique (Legendary KO).
Copyright Law and Creativity
⚖️ Under older copyright law (pre-1970s), a 28-year term plus a possible 14-year renewal meant Charles’s 1955 work would have entered the public domain around 1987, allowing free use by later creators.
📈 Current copyright terms (Life + 70 or 95 years) deny subsequent artists the freedoms Ray Charles utilized, forcing Kanye West to secure two separate licenses (sampling and composition) for "Gold Digger."
🎷 Applying modern licensing norms to genres like jazz—which rely heavily on sampling foundational elements—would effectively destroy the art form by requiring licenses for every borrowed lick or progression.
🚫 The Bridgeport ruling suggests that even a two-second digital sample is likely copyright infringement, effectively leading to a "get a license, or do not sample" environment for recorded works.
Fair Use and Cultural Impact
🤔 In music cases, courts are highly reluctant to apply the idea/expression distinction, viewing music as almost entirely expression, making the fair use defense atrophy as markets develop for even "ludicrous" micro-uses.
📢 The primary fair use defense asserted in music copyright cases over the last 40-50 years has been parody; however, The Legendary KO’s song uses West’s work to critique the government, not the song itself.
🚫 Despite its immediate creation and political urgency, The Legendary KO’s song never appeared on commercial TV or radio due to copyright law acting as a one-way filter, impoverishing the national conversation surrounding Hurricane Katrina.
Key Points & Insights
➡️ Music creation, especially genres like soul and hip-hop, relies on large-scale copying and transformation of prior copyrighted material.
➡️ Extended copyright terms (now Life + 70/95 years) restrict the common space of music making needed for new genres to emerge, unlike the older, shorter 28/56-year systems.
➡️ Technology enables massive, tech-enabled infringement, but market feedback loops (important for commercial artists like Ray Charles) are stifled when the legal system prevents mass dissemination via traditional commercial channels.
➡️ The Legendary KO and their collaborators expressed that an "anything-goes" world, where they could borrow freely but risk others altering their own work's message, is preferable for cultural evolution over a highly restrictive licensing world.
📸 Video summarized with SummaryTube.com on Nov 24, 2025, 22:58 UTC
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Full video URL: youtube.com/watch?v=W_eULq_aP60
Duration: 49:54
Get instant insights and key takeaways from this YouTube video by Duke University School of Law.
The Case Study: Kanye West and The Legendary KO Song
📌 The lecture centers on tracing the 100-year history behind the powerful Katrina protest song, "George Bush doesn't care about black people."
🎤 The song, created rapidly by hip-hop duo The Legendary KO, sampled Kanye West’s hit "Gold Digger," which itself sampled Ray Charles’s "I Got a Woman."
🗣️ Kanye West uttered the phrase during a televised Hurricane Katrina relief telethon on September 2, 2005, criticizing the media's portrayal of Black victims versus White victims.
Musical Lineage and Transformation
🎵 Ray Charles’s 1955 song, "I Got a Woman," is credited with birthing soul music by fusing rhythm and blues and gospel, shocking some by substituting the worship of the divine with the worship of a woman.
⛪ "I Got a Woman" is traced back to the hymn "Jesus is All the World to Me" (1904) by W.L. Thompson, and more closely, to the 1953 gospel song "I’ve Got a Savior" by the Clara Ward Singers.
🔄 The message transformation is significant: the exalted savior becomes an amorous lover (Charles), then a grasping gold digger (West), and finally, a political critique (Legendary KO).
Copyright Law and Creativity
⚖️ Under older copyright law (pre-1970s), a 28-year term plus a possible 14-year renewal meant Charles’s 1955 work would have entered the public domain around 1987, allowing free use by later creators.
📈 Current copyright terms (Life + 70 or 95 years) deny subsequent artists the freedoms Ray Charles utilized, forcing Kanye West to secure two separate licenses (sampling and composition) for "Gold Digger."
🎷 Applying modern licensing norms to genres like jazz—which rely heavily on sampling foundational elements—would effectively destroy the art form by requiring licenses for every borrowed lick or progression.
🚫 The Bridgeport ruling suggests that even a two-second digital sample is likely copyright infringement, effectively leading to a "get a license, or do not sample" environment for recorded works.
Fair Use and Cultural Impact
🤔 In music cases, courts are highly reluctant to apply the idea/expression distinction, viewing music as almost entirely expression, making the fair use defense atrophy as markets develop for even "ludicrous" micro-uses.
📢 The primary fair use defense asserted in music copyright cases over the last 40-50 years has been parody; however, The Legendary KO’s song uses West’s work to critique the government, not the song itself.
🚫 Despite its immediate creation and political urgency, The Legendary KO’s song never appeared on commercial TV or radio due to copyright law acting as a one-way filter, impoverishing the national conversation surrounding Hurricane Katrina.
Key Points & Insights
➡️ Music creation, especially genres like soul and hip-hop, relies on large-scale copying and transformation of prior copyrighted material.
➡️ Extended copyright terms (now Life + 70/95 years) restrict the common space of music making needed for new genres to emerge, unlike the older, shorter 28/56-year systems.
➡️ Technology enables massive, tech-enabled infringement, but market feedback loops (important for commercial artists like Ray Charles) are stifled when the legal system prevents mass dissemination via traditional commercial channels.
➡️ The Legendary KO and their collaborators expressed that an "anything-goes" world, where they could borrow freely but risk others altering their own work's message, is preferable for cultural evolution over a highly restrictive licensing world.
📸 Video summarized with SummaryTube.com on Nov 24, 2025, 22:58 UTC
Find relevant products on Amazon related to this video
Transform
Shop on Amazon
Productivity Planner
Shop on Amazon
Habit Tracker
Shop on Amazon
Journal
Shop on Amazon
As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases

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