On the Ontology of Mechanically Reproduced Artworks

In this article, I introduce a hitherto un-articulated distinction that is relevant for understanding the ontology of mechanically reproduced artworks. The distinction concerns two distinct sorts of relationships that mechanically reproduced artworks can stand in to their sources: as instantiations or as representations. I argue that this distinction challenges (what I call) the dominant view about the ontology of sample-based musical works, which holds that samples are always instantiations of their sample sources. The dominant view is assumed by current copyright law, as well as by much of what is said in critical discussions of sample-based music. I give two related arguments against the dominant view. Negatively, I argue that the dominant view cannot accommodate many paradigmatic instances of sample-based music. Positively, I propose an alternative account of what is distinctive about the ontology of these paradigmatic examples of sample-based musical works. My account not only explains what is distinctive about these sample-based musical works, but also why their distinctiveness is so often overlooked.