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# Copyrights And The Most Famous Drum Break Ever
- URL: https://www.hypebot.com/copyrights-and-the-most-famous-drum-break-ever/
- Published: 2010-01-21T09:42:00.000Z
- Updated: 2010-01-21T09:42:00.000Z
- Description: The well-done documentary Copyright Criminals is airing this week in the U.S. on PBS and watching it last night was a stark reminder of how antiquated our current copyright laws. Continue reading [https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/01/copyrights-and-the-most-famous-drum-break-ever.html]
- Author: Bruce Houghton
- Tags: Uncategorized, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-01-21 11:03

The well-done documentary [Copyright Criminals](https://www.hypebot.com/copyright-criminals-film-on-pbs-tuesday/) is airing this week in the U.S. on PBS and watching it last night was a stark reminder of how antiquated our current copyright laws are. In the US, they haven't been seriously updated since 1976 – a fact which my younger students at [Berklee](https://www.hypebot.com/ill-be-teaching-the-future-of-music-the-music-business-online-for-berklee/) find almost unfathomable – and the situation elsewhere is similar. 

Change is long overdue as this 20-minute video on the history of the "Amen Break," a six-second drum sample from the b-side of a chart-topping single from 1969, also reminds us. This sample was used extensively in early hiphop and sample-based music, and became the basis for drum-and-bass and jungle music – a six-second clip that spawned several entire subcultures.