Suppose that Mr. Charles has complied with all the formalities. The words and music were published with a copyright notice. A copyright registration was filed and renewed. Does Mr. West infringe this copyright? That is where the discovery of the Bailey Gospel Singers recording is potentially so important. Charles only gets a copyright in his original creation. Those elements taken from the public domain (if "I've Got a Savior" was indeed in the public domain) or from other copyrighted songs do not count. The irony here is that the elements that Kanye West borrows from Ray Charles are almost exactly the same ones Ray Charles borrows from the Bailey Gospel Singers. "I've got a savior, Oh what a savior" becomes "I got a woman, way over town" becomes "There's a Gold Digger, way over town." And of course, the music behind those words is even more similar. When The Legendary K.O. reached for Kanye West's song in order to criticize Mr. Bush, they found themselves sampling Jamie Foxx, who was copying Ray Charles, who was copying the Bailey Gospel Singers, who themselves may have borrowed their theme from an older spiritual. 76
Five damn days, five long days And at the end of the fifth he walking in like "Hey!" Chilling on his vacation, sitting patiently Them black folks gotta hope, gotta wait and see If FEMA really comes through in an emergency But nobody seem to have a sense of urgency Now the mayor's been reduced to crying I guess Bush said, "N------'s been used to dying!" He said, "I know it looks bad, just have to wait" Forgetting folks was too broke to evacuate N------'s starving and they dying of thirst I bet he had to go and check on them refineries first Making a killing off the price of gas He would have been up in Connecticut twice as fast . . . After all that we've been through nothing's changed You can call Red Cross but the fact remains that . . . George Bush ain't a gold digger, but he ain't f--ing with no broke n------s "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People," The Legendary K.O. 78
The song "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People" was an immediate sensation. Hundreds of thousands of people downloaded it. Within days two different video versions had been made, one by Franklin Lopez and another by a filmmaker called "The Black Lantern." Both synchronized the lyrics of the song with news clips of the disaster and unsympathetic footage of President Bush apparently ignoring what was going on. The effect was both hilarious and tragic. The videos were even more popular than the song alone. The blogosphere was fascinated--entries were posted, e-mails circulated to friends with the usual "you have to see this!" taglines. In fact, the song was so popular that it received the ultimate recognition of an Internet fad: the New York Times wrote a story on it, setting the practice in historical context. 79