Ableton Forum

I thought I would try here and possibly save some time before doing some research of my own.
What if I made a blatant rip off of a sample, let's say the intro drum beat to "When The Levee Breaks" by Led Zeppelin in one one of my tunes, but my tune was available for free or playing on my website which is also non-profit and I get absolutely no earnings at all. Though I am sure it is still an infringement of copyright, can I be sued if I make no money.

I asked the same question a while ago, but didn´t get an answer where somebody was 100% sure. There seemed to be consense about the fact/assumption that you cant be sued when you don´t make money. Nevertheless, I imagine they could sue you to take the sample off your music, and make you pay the costs of this lawsuit. But these are all assumptions, nothing for sure.

It doesn't matter whether you earn money with it or not. The song is copyrighted and as long as you are simply sampling it so that it is clear that it is the original piece you do have a problem with the copyright.
Besides the sound you will have the same problem if you recorded the same notes yourself. The only question is: Can there be a copyright on the notes? A classical rock beat surely is from the notes side not copyright applicable. As soon there is anything special about it, however, the composer can have a copyright.

If you sample parts of a song and distribute it - with or without earning money - you can be sued. There is nothing unsure about that.

nbinder wrote:It doesn't matter whether you earn money with it or not. The song is copyrighted and as long as you are simply sampling it so that it is clear that it is the original piece you do have a problem with the copyright.
Besides the sound you will have the same problem if you recorded the same notes yourself. The only question is: Can there be a copyright on the notes? A classical rock beat surely is from the notes side not copyright applicable. As soon there is anything special about it, however, the composer can have a copyright.

If you sample parts of a song and distribute it - with or without earning money - you can be sued. There is nothing unsure about that.

But to what extend? How much would it cost? Here in Germany f. i. there is a (sort of) legal rule that before sueing somebody you need to approach him and demand your rights outside the court. Then he would first be warned, and after that sued if he continued to infringe.

nbinder wrote:It doesn't matter whether you earn money with it or not. The song is copyrighted and as long as you are simply sampling it so that it is clear that it is the original piece you do have a problem with the copyright.
Besides the sound you will have the same problem if you recorded the same notes yourself. The only question is: Can there be a copyright on the notes? A classical rock beat surely is from the notes side not copyright applicable. As soon there is anything special about it, however, the composer can have a copyright.

If you sample parts of a song and distribute it - with or without earning money - you can be sued. There is nothing unsure about that.

You know, I asked the exact same questions of a lawyer working for the RIAA who was in town for some copyright lawsuits a couple years back. (Friend of a friend, saw him over lunch. Kind of an asshole.) His reply was that merely making copies for personal artistic exploitation is OK, as is replaying notes and rerecording them.

FWIW.

My understanding of the situation is....

You can not use a sample without prior authorization, even if it is free or you make no money from it.
Potentially you are putting yourself in a bad position. The copyright owner knowing you have no money could sue you and win compensation from your future earnings, whether that is restricted to earnings from a recording career or as a forklift driver im not sure where the court would draw the line.

What you have to bare in mind is that the music industry is losing revenue and will try to protect their investment even more rigourously in future.

Personally Id rather err on the cautious side.

sven303 wrote:What you have to bare in mind is that the music industry is losing revenue and will try to protect their investment even more rigourously in future.

Personally Id rather err on the cautious side.

This sums it up nicely.

if its a non profit ,..you can use it ,..but dont credit it ,..if you do you would need to authorize it. Dangermouse made a grey album and they could do him nothing. Search and you would know how to avoid. If you are getting paid using someone else "property" thats a problem.

Grappadura wrote:But to what extend? How much would it cost? Here in Germany f. i. there is a (sort of) legal rule that before sueing somebody you need to approach him and demand your rights outside the court. Then he would first be warned, and after that sued if he continued to infringe.

I was reading an article recently about a music copyright infringement case in Germany where the court found in favour of the person doing the sampling. I think they ruled it was fair creative usage - they must of played about with the sample a bit and not used much of it though. I guess the gist of it that was that if you use it creatively and don't just copy it, then there is legal justification.

But none of that really matters. If you get contacted by the record label or their solicitors with a threat of legal action you will shit yourself, do exactly what they tell you to and then prey to god that they don't actually take you to court.

There is no way the average person can go up against a major label or artist, they've got too much money and can afford to lose a court case - average people can't.

Green Lemon wrote:You know, I asked the exact same questions of a lawyer working for the RIAA who was in town for some copyright lawsuits a couple years back. (Friend of a friend, saw him over lunch. Kind of an asshole.) His reply was that merely making copies for personal artistic exploitation is OK, as is replaying notes and rerecording them.FWIW.

We have done a few reworks and I can assure you that is NOT true. We had to get permittance of the publisher holding the rights of the original composer. If we used the samples instead of re-playing it, we would also have had to ask the recording artist.

Funny story about this: We sat together with the original artists of a track and they asked us to do a rework. So we were about to get all the permittances from the labels and the publishers. While the publisher was no big problem (they will get the publishing fees anyway because the original authors are listed on the new release as well) the label was annoying. I have to add we only planned to use a small vocal sample from the original recording. They told us we have to pay xxxx $ (insert a really big amount of money here, not just hundrets of dollars).

What did we do? As we had the original singer, we went to the studio again, recorded again which was only a couple of minutes and didn't have to pay the label. It sounded exactly (99%) the same as it was the same guy.

And at the end of the story what I want you to take with you is the following: Be careful. You have to get permissions for the notes as well as the recording, and don't think "they have other work to do, they won't sue me". A friend of mine made a small house tune which "unfortunately" was a global breakthrough. It only contained some very very little samples (you wouldn't notice it until you compared both the original and the track closely) , yet he was sued and lost everything.

Now he is a label manager and since then he always asked for permission. In most of the cases this wasn't a big thing, I myself can also confirm that the people at the labels and publishers I contacted were really friendly and tried to help me... that's their job. Publishers were absolutely no problem (so re-recording it should be possible in most of the cases) and labels depend.

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/11/2 ... ent-793845 if I may post this link,...I would really like the be the judge and I would make some adjustments,...haha

look at Moldover's site, he's playing tons of mashups that he certainly didn't get permission to use. if you're illegal you're a small fish in the sea and will blend in.


"b... b... but Judge! the Ableton forum said it would be OK!!"
pwnt.

girl talk takes lots of samples and does not pay for them also.

What if you're using movie or media samples as a sound effect, all manipulated to no end, do the same legalities apply?

For example, it seemed for a while in the late 90's, every psychedelic trance tune had a "matrix" sample in it, yet was still distributed internationally....

You know, a lot of opinions and contradictory anecdotal evidence. Well, its the Ableton forum. But it would be nice if there was a site to go to where one could actually get the hard facts of the legality.

The same lawyer cited above assured me that 10 min of effort on Google would dispel any confusion (after I pointed out to him that sample based artists have an interest in following the law but it just doesn't seem inherently possible), but I have yet to find any RIAA approved sampling guide.