It might be April Fools’ Day, but this news is no joke. We’re thrilled to announce —finally! —  the release of Creative License: The Law of Culture and Digital Sampling, a compelling new book that explores the complexities and contradictions in how music samples are licensed within the current copyright landscape.

Creative License is authored by Peter DiCola (Assistant Professor of Law at Northwestern University; FMC Board member) and Kembrew McLeod (documentary filmmaker and media professor at the University of Iowa). Featuring interviews with more than 100 stakeholders in the sampling community — including David Byrne, Cee-Lo Green, George Clinton, De La Soul, DJ Premier, DJ Qbert, Eclectic Method, El-P, Girl Talk, Matmos, Mix Master Mike, Negativland, Public Enemy, RZA, Clyde Stubblefield and T.S. Monk — Creative License places digital sampling into an historical, cultural, and legal context.

To celebrate the release of Creative License, FMC is collaborating with the authors and Duke University Press on a bona fide book tour. As exciting as that is, it’s not our first rodeo — we’ve actually hosted a a few public discussions about music sampling. In September 2008, FMC curated “Creative License: a Conversation About Music, Sampling and Fair Use” — a panel discussion at the Public Theater in NYC featuring Kembrew, Columbia University’s June M. Besek, American University Law School’s Peter Jaszi, artist and label owner EL-P and musician T.S. Monk. Earlier that year, we teamed up with Pitchfork Music Festival for a conversation at the Chicago Cultural Center between McLeod and Chuck D, Hank Shocklee and Keith Shocklee (Public Enemy; The Bomb Squad) and journalist/activist Harry Allen. In 2009, we hosted a panel at the 2009 Future of Music Policy Summit in Washington DC with DiCola, McLeod and a host of experts and practitioners. For every event, we make an effort to include perspectives of different stakeholders and discuss remedies that balance creativity, compensation and control.

This time around, Peter and Kembrew will be speaking at a number of locations around the country (along with soon-to-be-announced special guests):

Friday, April 8: Peter DiCola at University of Michigan School of Law, Madison, WI

Saturday, April 16: Peter DiCola at Busboys and Poets, Washington, DC

Monday, April 18: Peter DiCola at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA

Tuesday, April 19: Peter DiCola at Junto at P’unk Ave in Philadelphia, PA

Wednesday, April 20: Peter DiCola at Drexel University Music Industry Program in Philadelphia, PA

Tuesday, April 26: Peter DiCola and Kembrew McLeod at Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City, IA

Official events page

If Kembrew and Peter are in your area, you’ll definitely want to stop by. And don’t forget to grab a copy of Creative License — we’re not kidding when we say that it’s really, really good.