It's funny, that in art someone can make a collage and call it art, Not entirely true, plagiarism is an issue in (post)modern art.
but in music ... as in modern literature: writers have to acknowlegde the source, and pay a tiny sum of royalties. When a author opposes, you can't even quote. Scientology grew big on this law: you have to buy the books if you want to know more... when someone does it it's
called Use of Copyrighted material in a fashion other than intended by the original artists, my lawyers will be calling you in the morning.... That's exactly what a painter will do, when plastic bags appear with his painting on there. Mondrian and Van Gogh are dead guys, so that's why you see 'De STIJL-wallpaper' and VanGogh-with-headphones-T-Shirts. Surely they would oppose, when they were alive. And it wouldn't have helped them a bit, just like it didn't help Newton. Except that I will go looking for his record now, i grew curiously excited, mainly because either the Beastie Boys (or Money Mark) had this ECM record in their collections.
Try to think about their positions right along that of other people in the art field. They are not so far apart, as long as you want to see the similarities, ie. 'they' keep you starving while you're alive. It goes for most artists, struggling against galeries, record companies, promotors and organisers. It goes for most of all the painters, composers, writers, almost anyone personally involved in copyright law, people without any big multinational supporting you, to defend your rights (like the Beastie Boys). BTW the one that made plunderphonics impossible in the first place, was Michael Jackson, who also forbid The Beastie Boys to cover the Lennon/ McCarnety song I"M DOWN. Jackson owned the rights in the eighties. Isn't that ironic? Regards, Remco Takken