3 notes and runnin.... protesting court ruling on sampling

[beachnote]

oooh, the copyright stuff....do you guys know anything about this? cause i do, and it is ugly. very, very ugly.

copyrights now extend "life+70" years now, and this value will probably grow every 20 years (the expiration date), yet another 20 years. pretty much means nothing will ever enter the public domain after it is copyrighted....which is pretty damn obsurd, considering nothing is truly original to begin with...this is just another way for the rich to get richer and the poor to stay poor.

needless to say, the point of copyright is to protect the work for the original owner, which makes you wonder why it is the life of the owner +70? wtf? this makes it obvious the people truly profiting are the copyright owners after the true creator has been long dead.

and who do we have to thank for this?....well....Mickey Mouse, of course.

disney spends millions and millions every 20 years or so bribing congress with lavish donations of campaign cash to extend the copyright statue of limitations another 20 years....because of course, what would happen to good ol walt disney with mickey mouse and goofy in the public domain, oh my......and oh yeah, these extensions are retroactive!

read this article, might get you thinking...: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary ... igman.html

anyway, just an off topic thing that might interest you...because after all we are musicians, and this impacts music just as much...

it is a fact that artist depend on a rich public domain in which to derive innovations from, and that dwindles less and less...which is why there is less artistic innovation every year...all thanks to mickey mouse...

[Machinesworking]

And the NWA track hardly invades PFunks share of the marketplace... Besides, whatever happened to statute of limitation? The NWA track is like a gazillion years old! If the lawsuit had been 10(?) years ago, I might have felt differently about it...

The interesting part about that to me is George Clinton went on stage at the MTV Music Awards or some other such music event in the nineties WITH DR. Dre and Snoop Dog, and made a small speech about how much he appreciated Dre for ACTUALLY PAYING him for samples?????

Guess he ran out of money again?

Sad, I like Clinton, but this is stupid, especially considering....

BTW, I think people who don't understand sampling snips of other songs and rearranging them into something completely different probably don't understand collage art, Andy Warhol, or any take on mass media, ( that includes commercial music ) using snips of current or past events etc.

There was a brilliant song done by a group called Negativeland that used out-takes from Casey Kassim trying to read an intro to a song by U2, ( messing up, and cursing up a storm! ), snips of the news, and a guy blandly saying "were did I put it? I can't find it" over what sounds like a radio playing "I still haven't found what I'm looking for". It's one of the funniest songs, and it makes such a great statement about the music industry, but Island records sued the band for $40,000. They never recovered from that, and were dropped by the small underground label they were on.

So yeah, FUCK the record industry, and fuck all of you who think somehow your little 3 second or less snip is precious.

Get over it!

You are making it impossible to make ANY sort of statement about the media in general with all of your money grubbing and whining.

I'm sitting here thinking about all these underground bands I love that would be just CRUSHED if some idiot at Paramount decided that the sample they used from Blade Runner has a $40,000 price tag on it.

See? you eliminate sampling as a form of expression and GWB tries to stop somebody from using his voice in a song. Let's just role back another freedom shall we?

[Chris J]

oooh, the copyright stuff....do you guys know anything about this? cause i do, and it is ugly. very, very ugly.
...

Are sure you do ?
you're confusing the song itself and the recording. so even when the song is in public domain you still won't have the right to sample the recording. And that's forever.

as for the life + 70, maybe once you have a few hits and they get covered by thousands of people, and you have children and grand children, you'll understand the purpose of this.

[beachnote]

Are sure you do ?
you're confusing the song itself and the recording. so even when the song is in public domain you still won't have the right to sample the recording. And that's forever.

as for the life + 70, maybe once you have a few hits and they get covered by thousands of people, and you have children and grand children, you'll understand the purpose of this.

it has nothing to do with sampling, which is why i mentioned it is off topic. and if you honestly believe that copyrighting something for 150+ years helps future social, technical, and scientific advancements then you dont know wtf you are talking about.

and this does not change the fact that you get paid for your recordings, so my grand kids, grand kids, ect. will still see money from my recordings 10,000 years from now if the record is still selling.

[Chris J]

if you honestly believe that copyrighting something for 150+ years helps future social, technical, and scientific advancements then you dont know wtf you are talking about.

I don't think it helps, I think it has strictly nothing to do with future social, technical, and scientific advancements.

so my grand kids, grand kids, ect. will still see money from my recordings 10,000 years from now if the record is still selling.

yes, and that's the most horrible concept I've ever encountered in this life

PS i'm talking about music here

[beachnote]

I don't think it helps, I think it has strictly nothing to do with future social, technical, and scientific advancements.

ah, heck, i forgot the most relevant one in there, artistic advancement

[Chris J]

I don't understand :
you can still be inspired by some copyright material. It just prevents from ripping it off completly.

[beachnote]

I don't understand :
you can still be inspired by some copyright material. It just prevents from ripping it off completly.

ok, i dont want to get into a debate over this cause im not into ripping things off, on the contrary. my post had little to do with music and sampling, period. it was about copyright in general and how disney is a bastard of a company.

music is obviously much more cut and dry because of recordings, and i totally agree with the fact that if you sample something from someone elses hard work you should pay them their money. no matter how distorted you might make it. if its that distorted to begin with might as well make your own distorted shit.

anyway, peace, bro.

[Machinesworking]

I don't understand :
you can still be inspired by some copyright material. It just prevents from ripping it off completly.

You can't use ANY amount of it in a song, even if in Negativeland's case it was obvious parody. BAD precedent BAD!

[FaX-01]

I'm just curious because I as sure as hell can and have written heaps of tracks with nothing more than self generated samples and source material and my own synths.
I understand the point of the debate and yes I aslo know the Negativeland track and have alot of early KLF / The Jamms sample based material which is both clever and highly amusing.
I do also believe their needs to be some protection of intellectual property whilst giving "creative samplists" a viable outlet for their art.
That said I can't see how such a law actually stifles my creativity in anyway shape or form from a compositional and composing viewpoint.
If anything it's forced me to become more creative.
And there are plenty of LEGAL sample libraries out their for mangling and the like without the need for wholesale sample lifts that may breach copyright law.
On that note there are more than likely a tonne of releases where the manipulation is so severe you'd never in a month of Sundys be able to trace the source material.
This is the aspect of creativity that I think such laws have inspired in samplists.
They've become very cunning programmers who can mangle audio sources beyond original source material recognition.
Is it an art form hell yeah.
The catch 22 is what if someone then goes and whole sale lifts your mangling efforts without any further creative input on that source material.
Just my 0.2 cents worth.

[rikhyray]

Seems to me that some of you do not exactly understand the ideas of intellectual property. I used the rough example on purpose, an artistic creation is not just a "thing" to real artist it is just like a child, not possesion, object but actual living being, as much , if not more for some people, like their mother, sister. So it is more then just talking about money. If you want to create you have to have some sense, understanding and respect. Mostly it is about respect and it is not that difficult to get the permission of the original artist, often it is enough to give credits, name, title of an album or whatever.
If you just remixing for yours and your friends pleasure it does not matter anyway but if you do it for money then it is better to think before you do. Otherwise you may create worldwide hit and end up paying more then you earned from it.
There is stealing and"stealing" as inspiration. Certainly the second one happens all the time, consciously or unconsciously we get inspired. So I hear some increadible 4 measures of piano I would love to build into my song. So what are the options ? Get in touch with a pianist, let him record for me, play that myself, get somebody else do it, or just lift it from that CD. Then you have all possible complications.
Any producer with any experience will tell you that, "clear the samples before"
None of you want that shit. Why you want to waste your life in sensless protest. The legal matters specially in US is just the power of the money. You may kill your ex wife but if you famous with a lot of money you walk free.
Lets take the 2 examples. That Clinton thingy, well I could get somebody in to record me that phrase for 50$ or even a beer. So even though I support Clinton out of my respect and principle, from what I heard on my laptop speakers is really nothing, do I think it is something essential, important for the song, hell no. Yet Clinton has some recognition, position and what not, comes a winner, good for him, that man deserve all good.
Now in case of that fabulous flutist, look even I dont remember his name, his phrase that Beasties used was pure magic, shit I know I wouldnt be able to get that phrase, flava from anyone. And it was making their song, it gave that magic yet... he lost, and I hope that Beasties and they lawyers did not fuck him up completly as they were intending to. That man is just musician, flutist, no endorsment for Apple or IBM, even I dont remember his name, this is America, he was right but he is broke ass jazz musician even if the greatest.
So my point it, think before you do, dont deal lightheartedly with copyrighted material and you are saving yourself unnecessary complications. If you rich, lucky you, pay but if not be carefull as you may get in trouble.
The example of painting on Monet, why ?, have no clean paper ? In fact if you analise the sample you like and try to recreate you may come up with something equally good as the original or perhaps better. I was surprised hearing from Santana that he picked up some BB Kings stuff, then when I listened carefully realised , that`s right it comes from BB, still Santana is probably most recognisable guitarist, just like BB. But Carlos integrated it into his sound, his voice.
If you want respect, respect others, I paid for my Live because I respect the people who gave me truly able tone, I could use on stage or in studio a freely available cracks, yet to hear about anybody who got caught with illegal music software but I dont want. I just dont believe it works in a long run, living on others expense.
Fax, thanks for your support but I suppose it is my fault using example that got people reacting emotionally, that`s internet problem, unlike in direct conversation the words can take the life of their own. Also it was so brief that my point wasnt clear, hope it is now.
And to those using abusive words, Mr. Smutek I understand you didnt really mean it or want it, just got provoked through my unfortunate choice of words. Sorry to upset you too much ( upset a bit, make you think was my intention though).

[Moonburnt]

ooh, juicy topic. ok, to add fuel to the fire , i want to debate this seemingly good point, for debate's sake (and by the way i have some imminent sample-clearing issues to face myself ):

If I take a photograph of a monet, print it out and paint it black, then put a picture of a cow fucking your mother on it is it still a fucking monet?

So to continue that analogy, i assume the monet must still have added something special, otherwise you wouldn't have bothered to put it in your composition in the first place? You must have seen something in it that you wanted to borrow, even though it was going to be obliterated by the cow and rikhyray's momma getting it on. If the monet didn't have that something special in it, there would be no benefit to be gained from incorporating it rather than composing from the ground up. Of course sampling is great and has wikkedly wicked amounts of artistic potential, but perhaps it's destined to be one of these legal grey areas that doesn't have a single definitive right answer.

[montrealbreaks]

I have a degree in History. Someone very close to me was once a professional archivist for her local government, as well as for a government funded museum.

She understood a great deal of copyright law, and knows fully the horrible ramifications of keeping things out of the public domain.

Assume that Mickey Mouse has some historical value. (I don't think he does, but then again, historiography is a social science unto itself).

As an historian, I could write an academic paper the impact of cultural trends on our civilization such as the effect of the rail road on the development of the Canadian West. But, what if I wanted to write a paper on the trends of 1920s childrens entertainment and how it may have influenced a generation (the same generation who fought in World War II)?

I cannot mention the name mickey mouse without getting permission from disney. What if I want to write an unflattering piece, or make an historical observation based off this that disney doesn't like?

My point is that copywritten material forms the BULK of our current social symbology. How can you artistically or academically examine something if you can't reference it? The same legal principles for the music industry are in effect for others. Soon enough, I won't be able to criticize a corporation for envrionmental misconduct because I can't mention their trade marked name in a protest song.

People of the Leftist persuasion loooove to point the finger at government - individuals, parties, policies, bills and laws... But what about when you want to point the finger at a corporation, whose name, products etc are all forbidden to quote in your music?

In academics, written text is copyright. However, I can quote another author without his or her permission so long as I footnote and credit the source in a bibliography. This is common practice, and I feel the solution for the music and artistic application of the law. Technically, by qouting another author (whether you use the passage to criticise it or to reinforce your arguement) is a violation of copyright. You are lifting another's work and putting it in yours without permission - exactly the same as sampling, only in this case, you're NOT changing ANYTHING of the "sample", so it's even more blatant.

Academics just tolerate and accept this behavious, though according to the laws as they stand now, it is technically illegal (though it's not enforced) for an author of an academic text to qoute another author without his permission.

So, if this were to become enforced, we would see the humanities, social science and the theoretical sciences all grind to a developmental halt.

Copyright is good in small doses. It was originally intended to prevent me from re-releasing material and claiming ownership of the whole. Extending copyright past the lifetime of the creator, or forbidding artistic "debate" is not good.

Perhaps artists should start "academic" music, in the sense that a sample is used and referenced in the same way as an academic text or article - the sample taken without permission but fully credited. When you go to court, use the precedent of the academics and insist that your work is a musical essay or thesis.

[hoffman2k]

To bring up micky mouse again.

The copyright law is nick-named 'the mickey-mouse law'

Disney stole story's from the grimm brothers and sold them as their own. With disney's influence and cash they where able to change / adjust the laws.

Basicly they made sure that nobody could do to them, what they did to the grimm brothers.

You can go on about 'intellectual property' but it's just a big word for $

Nobody can own 12 tones. but they all try.

[smutek]

And to those using abusive words, Mr. Smutek I understand you didnt really mean it or want it, just got provoked through my unfortunate choice of words. Sorry to upset you too much ( upset a bit, make you think was my intention though).

rikhyray,

I would have been even more offended if you would have said that to me in person! Regardless, I accept your apology and I offer you mine.