Sampling Ilegal

Sabrina Setlur - Nur mir:

likable, and pretty blatant sample

decisions on each sampling case are so ludicrously arbitrary. I'm for being able to use things like this, but the idea that this was okay but NWA's half-speed downsampled Funkadelic sample wasn't okay... just underlines how dangerous it is to try to apply court rulings to the arts

Yeah, the disparity between the decisions on these issues is pretty extreme. The Second Circuit in 2003 said the Beastie Boys' six-second flute sample was too small to amount to infringement even though they looped it over 40 times, while the Sixth Circuit two years later (the case Lessig discusses in the top link) took a zero-tolerance approach to a two-second sample of "Get Off Your Ass And Jam."

i've been really curious lately about sample clearance & legality. for example, with all this dubstep stuff that samples big r&b songs (james blake w/aaliyah & kelis, burial w/beyonce etc., joy orbison w/janet jackson, etc.), or planet mu giving an official release to footwork tracks with super obvious pop samples...is anyone going to the trouble of getting the samples cleared, or just hoping that it's under the radar and no one will notice or care?

prob the latter

I mean isn't it a lot cheaper to send a cease & desist than it is to like fucking take someone to court? Doesn't seem like they have much to lose I guess?

What it really boils down to is the size of the pot.

It isn't worth paying the lawyers to draft and file the paperwork over a couple thousand 12"s and some downloads. That is why you can pretty much get away with sampling whatever you like in underground dance music. The pressings are so small and there is so little money there, that it isn't worth it for rights holders to go after infringement.

It doesn't necessarily work that way - C&D letter is not like your yellow card. You can still get sued and/or wind up owing money even if you stop on receipt of a letter.

xpost

came across this dj rupture quote, although he's talking about mix cds instead of original production that incorporates samples:

"That's an enormous amount of work," he says. "With my previous releases, I would kind of explain to everybody and get verbal permissions from the underground and independent artists, and not even bother with Missy Elliott or any of the major label stuff. But the legal climate for that type of thing has changed -- at least when you're releasing commercial CDs with uncleared tracks on it. It just doesn't make sense to do it anymore. So I don't know what my next mix-CD will be like -- it might just be an online mix available for free. Then I could say, 'If I had a CD for sale, this is what it would be.' But if I did try, it would probably cost me $70,000 because I couldn't get The-Dream to sign off on a cappella or whatever."

it's from here, but it also has girl talk saying some annoying things and i don't want to turn this into the girl talk thread.

Case is still going:

http://news.yahoo.com/theft-german-court-mulls-over-sampling-kraftwerk-tune-194707835.html

Ain't no grudge like a Hütter grudge.

OMG I can't deal with his black eye; that looks so so painful. That man has got to stop injuring himself.

http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/video/video-135863.html