Court rules that all samples must be licensed.

[jaerdaph]

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

Heh - I used to love that game show!

Oh, and Eric's right - it's the performance that's protected, not the notes.

 

[The Sigil]

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

For those who missed the importance of Eric's quote, here's an expansion of it.

It's not the combination of the three notes in question that's protected... it's a particular artist's recording of those three notes that is protected. In other words, if I record myself on tuba playing "A-B-C" it means you can't take THAT RECORDING and re-use it, splice it, mix it, etc. without my permission. You CAN find your own tuba, and play "A-B-C' and take the recording YOU made and mix it.

Also, it should be noted that the music industry (and copyright for musical works) has one important difference from every other field - the "compulsory license" exemption. If I want to record my garage band doing a rendition of, I don't know, "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," and burn CD copies of it to hand out to my friends, I am allowed to do that provided I pay a fee to the copyright holder (in this case, I believe it would be Michael Jackson) - that fee is 8.5 cents per copy I make (provided my rendition is less than 5 minutes in length). I don't have to get permission from Michael, and he can't refuse my doing it, provided I cut the check and send it to him (in practice, this is done usually done through clearinghouses).

All this means for the rap industry is that they have to stop grabbing "someone else's recording" and mixing it - instead they have to make their OWN recording of someone else's song, mix THAT particular rendition instead, and then pay the 8.5 cents per copy mandated by compulsory licensing.

It's NOT the end of the world, but it means either rap artists must learn to play their own riffs ... or hire people who can.

I have heard the analogy that this is like having to have permission from the copyright holder of every picture you use in a collage to make a collage - but it's not quite the same because of the "compulsory licensing clause" - one could argue that it's impossible to reproduce every picture in a collage to make it useful to "splice" the collage together into a new artistic work... but with "compulsory licensing," a sufficiently skilled musician (or musicians) can perfectly reproduce every bit of sound they want to use in their "musical collage."

Now, this STILL doesn't make me a fan of current copyright laws, but due to the particular in and outs of the music industry and copyright laws as they apply to music, it's difficult to get worked up about it affecting other fields - because, as I mentioned, music (and only music) has a few "special clauses" in copyright law that don't apply anywhere else, the biggest one in this case being "compulsory licensing."

--The Sigil

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Nicely expanded, Sigil. I don't think you missed any relevant nuances.

(I'm and Entertainment Lawyer, and couldn't have expounded better.)

 

[BOZ]

so, whatever happened to metallica suing that canadian band over using their chords?

 

[AGGEMAM]

Sigil, IIRC 'I wanna hold your hand' was by the Beatles. Did they sell the rights?

Oh, and btw, it really doesn't matter to a non-US citizen whatever the ruling says. We have our own copyright laws (which are in accordance to the international accepted laws) and no US court can change that or infringe on my rights. (Well, baring the Patriot Act off course, which means they can detain me indefinitely without being changed of anything and without having proof of anything and without appearing before a court wether or not I'm a US citizen, but that's a whole other can of worms).

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Sigil, IIRC 'I wanna hold your hand' was by the Beatles. Did they sell the rights?

Oh, and btw, it really doesn't matter to a non-US citizen whatever the ruling says. We have our own copyright laws (which are in accordance to the international accepted laws) and no US court can change that or infringe on my rights. (Well, baring the Patriot Act off course, which means they can detain me indefinitely without being changed of anything and without having proof of anything and without appearing before a court wether or not I'm a US citizen, but that's a whole other can of worms).

MJ bought the rights to a large portion of the Beatles tunes, I believe.

 

[Desdichado]

Sigil, IIRC 'I wanna hold your hand' was by the Beatles. Did they sell the rights?

Yes and yes. Mostly. It's a longer story than that, but still, that's directionally correct.

 

[Kesh]

Sigil, IIRC 'I wanna hold your hand' was by the Beatles. Did they sell the rights?

Back in late 80's or so, the rights to a large chunk of the Beatles' songs came up for sale. Paul McCartney wanted to buy them, so that the control over the songs would at least be in the hands of one of its creators. However, he was outbid... by Michael Jackson.

The key thing here: Paul and MJ had been friends for a while. Part of that friendship included Paul advising MJ on what to do with his money. One thing Paul mentioned was that MJ should invest in buying the rights to old songs, since the market was swinging towards licensing them for commercials and compilations.

Considering MJ took Paul's advice in a move that outbid Paul... well, from what I understand, they haven't been as close since.

 

[BOZ]

not very close, no.

 

[Dakkareth]

You know, I decided some time ago, that American laws were FUBAR and our German laws only one step behind on the way to insanity. The problem is, me thinking 'how stupid are those people' doesn't help it.

So there. Political post? Whatever. I really should achieve dominion over the world and set things straight. ENWorldlers would get lower taxes.