The second Signal to Noise conference begins to the sound of “Sexy Jesus” beating through the Ames Courtroom in Austin Hall at Harvard Law. The conference — sponsored by Berkman, Journal of Law and Technology, the Harvard Committee on Sports and Entertainment Law and Gartner G2 — has something to do with remix culture. About a hundred of us are sitting in an auditorium, facing forward, which seems at odds with the aims of the get-together.

Charlie Nesson begins by saying the aim of law is to create a culture in which we can have freedom and creativity in peace. He talks about copyright’s original balance being continuously upset by Congress’s one-side expansion of the length of copyright’s protection. He points to the expansion of copyright across space as well, beginning with Reagan linking copyright to trade expansion.

Eric Hellweg interviews Mike Doughty . Mike says he learned how to write songs by learning the 4-5 basic rock riffs. He quickly goes through a half dozen songs that use the basis C-F-G structure: Louie Louie, Wild Thing, Good Lovin’, etc. He talks about how what he listens to affects the songs he writes. E.g., his new single simplifies the chord structure Iron Maiden’s “Number of the Beast” — “just enough to get past the lawyers,” but for aesthetic not legal reasons. (He points out that it’s actually basically the same as “Oh When the Saints Go Marching In.”)

He says one band listed literally every sample, including a single snare drum hit, that would have been $1.2M in clearances. As a result, they never put out an album. Implicit advice: Don’t declare it unless you can get caught. Mike says that when he was the frontman for Soul Coughing, they did an album in ’93 that heavily sampled lots of tracks. “There are samples on our first album that we didn’t declare that it blows my mind we haven’t been caught on.”

He points out that the labels don’t care how many samples a band uses because the money for rights comes out of the artists’ pockets.

Mike recorded an acoustic album in the mid-90s that was rejected by his label, Warner. Years later, he was at a concert where people were singing songs from the album because it had been Napterized. “The thing about the file-sharing era is that it’s a great time to be me,” because he was already in a position to build a touring career. The file sharing helps build that. But he worries about new artists. “Autotune is going to get so good in the next five years that you won’t even have to be able to sing as well as Jennifer Lopez.” (AutoTune transforms your warbles into in-tune melodies.) These “artists” won’t be able to support themselves singing live. [I somehow don’t have a lot of concern about the ability of bad singers to make a living as singers.]

He says that on his blog, he has an “amnesty for file sharers” link that takes you to Musician’s Assistance Program.

Eric points us to Paul’s Boutique, a site that tries to decode all the samples in the work of Paul of the Beastie Boys. [So, Beastie Boys and “Sexy Jesus” both mentioned in a single JOHO blog entry.]

[This session was a terrific reminder that remixing, in one for or another, is a prerequisite for the existence of culture. Also, a really enjoyable conversation.] [Technorati tags: s2n Doughty remix]

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