Court rules that all samples must be licensed.

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Hey all, this more or less is of interest to those interested in licensing issues. The news is relevant to the music industry, but can be viewed as being peripherally of interest to everyone who has in interest copyright laws.

Ryan Dancy pointed this news item on his OGL-mailing list.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1490830/20040908/index.jhtml?headlines=true

The gist is that the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in the US ruled that due to changes in copyright laws made to reduce digital piracy, musical samples even as small as three notes sampled must be licensed. Here is an excerpt from the news story:

"Three judges sitting on the panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati said the same federal laws currently in place to halt music piracy will also apply to digital sampling, and explained, "If you cannot pirate the whole sound recording, can you 'lift' or 'sample' something less than the whole? Our answer to that question is in the negative."

"The case at the crux of this new ruling focuses on the 1990 N.W.A song "100 Miles and Runnin'." The track samples a three-note guitar riff from a 1975 Funkadelic track, "Get Off Your Ass and Jam." The sample, in which the pitch has been lowered, is only two seconds long but is looped to extend to 16 beats and appears five times throughout the track."


Regards,
Eric Anondson

 

[Desdichado]

Huh. I guess they'll just have to "get off their asses and jam" their own guitar riff to use there, then.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

Three notes? Three notes?!?!?

OK, here's a question for anyone musically-inclined around here:

How feasible is it that a 3-note combo can be deemed original? Also, how can it be said that a 3-note combo was taken from a lincensed work, esp. if the same/similar 3-note combo appears in a piece deemed public domain?

Is "note" that actual term meant/used? Because if that's so, then EGBDG may be in trouble: "it's EGBDF = every good boy deserves fudge; 'EGB' is is copyrighted 2004 by Arista studios."

Man, if Beethoven was kicking around now, he'd be a billionaire at the least: imagine how many times royalty charges would be demanded whenever part of the 9th's used.

I really wonder how specific this will be. Will it have to be those notes in a specific time, octave, and key, or will that be deemed "irrevelant" in regards to litigation purposes?

 

[trancejeremy]

Hmmm, I wonder how this applies to the bass portion of tracks.

You used to be able to rip that off legally. Which has given us things like Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" (ripping off Under Pressure by Queen/Bowie), and virtually every early Beastie Boys song (generally ripping off Led Zeppellin).

And of course, this will be really tricky for stuff like Negativland, which produces music mostly made up of samples, or acts that use vocal samples from movies and films, like My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult.

OTOH, it's not that new. The KLF got into trouble from sampling from an Abba song. They had to destroy all the existing copies of their stuff.

And that song "Hippie Chick" by Soho got into trouble, because it contained a sample by the Smiths (maybe). I think they only had to pay half the royalties.

 

[Steve Jung]

Three notes? I can rip off that song in two notes.

 

[Alynnalizza]

This sounds astonishing to me. There are millions of different 3 note combinations out there. But I can't help but think how many songs have the same 3 notes! I mean come on, If this is the case the musicians like Chuck Berry should be getting tones of money just for his 'power' chords.

By this ruling, every Song that has 3 quarter note G Chord strums could be in violation under this rule. But then again, I guess if you can show that your hand, mouth, or other body part physically created the notes for the recording, they may not have a leg to stand on. Of course if you 'steal' a hole refrain or something, but you never really know.

I think I will put this on my need to pay attention to file. Intersting and worrisome at the same time.

Thanks for letting us/me know.

 

[Ashwyn]

This is probably going to cause a lot of problems. Seems like an uneducated decision to me.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Sure, a song may share the same 3 notes, and maybe even in the same order, and even in the same pitch...

But a sample has not only that, but the same tonal qualities and duration as well. They are usually recognizable as originating from a particular place.

Sure, the electronic bands (or any producer worth his salt) can alter that easily- a quick listen through a Ministry, Crystal Method, Chemical Brothers or MLWTT-KK track will reveal lots of stuff from elswhere...but it won't sound quite the same as the original.

However, over time, record company lawyers will be so..."diligent" about this practice that artists will probably take care of this themselves so they don't get booted from the label.

Of course...thats all assuming the ruling stands!

 

[Zappo]

Wow, wonderful... :\ How about setting up a database system of all registered music to automatically check whether a song is infringing, according to this ruling? I'd wager the results wouldn't be pretty. IMO, this is one more step towards the inevitable collapse of the copyright system.

 

[EricNoah]

It's not the notes that are protected, it's the performance.