It’s strange how things go in cycles and have a synchronicity to them, isn’t it? In this case it’s Wu-Tang Clan, which—not surprisingly—I’ve been very much aware of, but hadn’t come up in my sphere for a little bit. All of a sudden, though, Wu-Tang Clan found their way into being referenced in my world three or four times over the past week or so. Strange, right? The last of these references being a focus of the Everything Everywhere Daily podcast, a thing I listen to more days than not because it’s short (about ten minutes), well-done, and almost always covers something I don’t know much about in ways that are both interesting and entertaining. If you don’t listen to it, you might try it.
Anyway, the subject today was Wu-Tang Gang’s unique album Once Upon A Time in Shaolin, of which they made and released exactly one copy. I had heard of this before, but not in any real detail. Beyond that, I had never really thought about it much. Probably because it just floated past me. That’s how a lot of the world goes, right? Things happen and they register or don’t. We all know a lot less about things than we think we do.
Anyway, this podcast does a great job of laying out the reasoning for this approach, the packaging and marketing of the album, as well as the eventful path that the IP has gone through since its release. I’m not going to lay that all out here because you can have more fun listening to the podcast, or if you’re more inclined to read things start your quest at the album’s Wiki.
Copyright is a weird and wonderful thing, you know?
And it’s totally fascinating out on the edges.
If you’re a creator dealing with copyright at all, you might want to think about this more closely. Think about what copyright means to a business. How it gets transferred. Or doesn’t. Think about how unconstrained we are within the constraints that come with copyright law. Think about how we use it, or, again, don’t.
I know that, after listening to the podcast, I’ve been doing that all morning.