Lower courts had already ruled that artists must pay when they sample another artists' work. But it has been legal to use musical snippets - a note here, a chord there - as long as it wasn't identifiable.

link here
http://my.netscape.com/corewidgets/news/story.psp?cat=50803&id=2004090722050001668831

.. so if it is unrecognizable, how do ya prove it??

They don't have to. They just have to make you spend money on a Lawyer until you don't have any more.

(wow. Three posts in one go..)

Remember when the law was a thing of honor and dignaty. Ahh those were the days. When major corperations didn't own the law or our goverment.

What bullshit. How much time did they waste on this one?

Does this mean if you want to download a clip of a song that's illegal too? Is that considered a form of "sampling"?

sh*t, this is not good.

Yup, forget 99cents a song, pretty soon they'll want to sell them to us by the "cost per second" Anyone want to take bets on that

effectively destroying electronica and every sub-genre under it.

Darn you Vanilla ice for starting this whole thing with "Ice, Ice, Baby." You knew it was "Under Pressure." Why oh Why?

The reason this comes along is cause who really gets screwed in this world of remakes and sampling. (listen to the radio, you will know what I mean.) The artists who accually came up with a new song that was copied.

Just like hollywood the music industry is out of ideas.

Well, FUCK THEM- im gonna sample whaterever the fuck i want and if the riaa have a fucking problem, well they'll have to take it up with me.

Wow, hostile.

"effectively destroying electronica and every sub-genre under it."

Praise the Lord! Electronica, what a sorry ass excuse for "music". I think I'll drop some "e" and suck on a pacifier and drink bottled water and dance to some electronica! Woo!

And please rappers, enough with the Parliament Funkadelic samples. God bless you, George Clinton. These clowns don't have half of the talent that resides in your pinky finger.

Mroop, for once I have to agree with you. My favorite group of all time is Parliament Funkadelic. George Clinton is a musical genius. Rap music does alot of sampling of his music. I am surprised Mroop that you know who Parliament is. Kudos

Dude, I love P Funk. "The desired effect is what you get when you improve your interplanetary funksmanship. Sir Lollipop Man. Chocolate coated freakin' habit forming. Doin' it to ya in 3-D. So groovy that I dig me. Once upon a time called now! Somebody say is there funk after death? I say is 7Up? Yeah. P Funk!"

"Yeah, I dig. Let me put my sunglasses on. That's the law around here, you got to wear your sunglasses. So you can feel cool. Gangsta lean. Y'all should dig my sunroof top. Well all right."

Infringement:

AjuG

Copy-pasted from an ogg-encoded version of Candle in the Wind.

Four bytes. Does that count as infringement?

electronica consists of much GREAT music! not the crappy shit some wannabe's call R&B. but trance, house, techno...the good stuff. FUCK the gov't, FUCK the RIAA, FUCK their bullshit!

don't forget industrial!

Hey, I happen to like electronica there are some new fresh ideas for the music that used to be old being played and sampled makes it fresh again like the saying something old becomes new again.

The kids today don't get to hear good stuff even if it is a short clip of a loop.

Here is a key sentence in the article:

"The appeals court disagreed, saying a recording artist who acknowledges sampling may be liable, even when the source of a sample is unrecognizable."

So if a recording artist doesn't acknowledge sampling which is unrecognizalbe, then he/she is in the clear.

For a second, I thought the headline was indicating that listening to samples (as in those 30-second previews) was now a violation of copyright law, making it necessary to buy music before you could hear ("sample") it.

It is the next logical step.

George, don't give them any more ideas, okay?

I don't agree with mroop's opinion of the music, but his stereotype of the morons who tend to listen to it is right on. It's one reason I don't listen to it more than I do. If you go to raves for any reason, then you've failed as a human being.

Here's the problem. I don't care if you guys want to stereotype people who listen to techno, rap, whatever. The point it, it's still music. And now, this ruling puts yet another restrictive chain on it. There is a lot of songs I've heard that use "sampling" from another song, and they are good songs. But now, with this ruling, that music has been rendered "illegal." So much for free speech..

Keep in mind I don't care if you like techno or not the ruling does restrict certain ideas.

Some turntable junkies find good music that helps them along just like some mainstream so called artist do covers of other peoples work, You just can't ask any ol'e record company to let you release a good tune thats a remix of other peoples music.

Take for instance somewhere I read some trance group did a remix of some mainstream rock groups tune guess what the rock group liked it but the label wouldn't let them put it out. so this whole court thing just tightens the RIAA's position on people and music.

Think we can turn the law on them? If it gets passed to show them how wrong this really is.

I wonder how they would feel if the very law they want to pass so badly became law and someone used it to bite back at them I wonder if they would then think it was such a good idea.
Nice thought.

oops was for a different post got side tracked was thinking of the Induce act they want passed so badly sorry carry on.

All rite Mroop, I can dig your vibe. One Nation Under A Groove. I enjoy nothing more than cranking up the system and wiling out on P-Funk all day. Man, I have the 12in versions of Aqua Boogie, Flashlight, Agony Of Defeet and so on. Anyone who enjoys the P-Funk is ok in my book. Best music ever IMHO.

Am I too young for P-Funk?

Am I too old? You betcha!!

John 316...missed ya my friend.

This issue brings up something I have asked about in many threads before, and have talked with Tom Barger about..(and apparently a lot of people don't seem to get this part)..there has to be a smallest quantum of a copyright work that can be used without violating the copyright rules...
now, I'm really not invoking the fair use doctrine, which, as part of the prongs to decide if a use is "fair use" or not, includes the consideration of how much of the total work has been used by the person claiming fair use....

No...I am trying to get at a more fundamental aspect of the whole copyright scheme...it flows to the very essence of what is copyrightable.

A copyrightable work, needs to be an original work, meaning something you, as the owner, brought forth, and arguably, has not been brought forth or created before. But, in the world of music, there are only so many "building blocks"...notes, phrasing, etc., that a musician has to work with. A writer, such as your humble correspondent, has 26 letters of the alphabet, 10 numbers (0-9 inclusive), and various punctuation marks and spaces to use, with which to create a novel work of art.

Lets take "end of the road"....how many novels, screenplays, movie scripts, short stories, etc. do you think have put those five words together in that sequence? Lyrics to songs are usually poetic in format.

We've seen this question about "copyrightable blocks of content" played out in the whole Linux issue about who owns the code.

I think this "sampling" issue is begging that this issue with regard to the need for a definition of what constitutes the minimum unit of copyright. Is it a word, six notes, a phrase, a certain amount of code (with regard to computer programs).

I'm sure some will say this is a silly issue, but honestly, when we are dealing with programs such as BitTorrent in which each person uploads only a certain portion of the whole, I believe this issue will become one for the courts to decide.

"If you go to raves for any reason, then you've failed as a human being."

Funny. : )

You are never too old or too young for P Funk!

John316 - I assume you are talking about vinyl. Mercury/Casablanca released a collection of 12 inch versions of Parliament singles and a bunch of other bands too. You can get them used cheap at half.com here:

http://half.ebay.com/search/search.jsp?nthTime=1&product=music%3Atitle&query=the+12%22+collection&x=12&y=5

"I think this "sampling" issue is begging that this issue with regard to the need for a definition of what constitutes the minimum unit of copyright. Is it a word, six notes, a phrase, a certain amount of code (with regard to computer programs)."

Keep in mind that this decision is regarding the sound recording only. You can still use the same notes as another sound recording in your original sound recording to a certain extent without violating the song copyright, as opposed to sampling the actual song recording that has been created by someone else.

I'm copyrighting ALL notes...this is a little known fact that several thousand years ago, in my previous incarnation as DORON, I actually was the first one to discover notes as they are known today....

So kids....get ready to pay up cuz the Rooster is Coming Home to Roost...
King of All Media My Ass....
I own all notes!

ta da....

It will be intresting to see the effect this has on the mass-market (c)rap music. Will the labels negotiate sample licences? I doupt it, I cant see them turning down a chance for litigation. Will they confine their sampling to music owned by the same label, of those under the same owner? More likely. Perhaps they will stop sampling each other and purchase sample libraries instead?

Code, it is great to be back. Been very busy. Nice to see you are still fighting the good fight.

Mroop, of course I am talking about vinyl. I still have my P-Funk vinyl from the 70's.

I feel people who sample music and just put diffrent lyrics over it can be a good thing and a bad thing. the good thing it brings the old artist into a new erea and gives them a whole new aduience. Bad thing some of the crap is not even creative I could make some of the music and make lots of $$$. Bottom line its who you know that is going to give u the chance to create and make a profit.

I don't have a freaking record player

Mainstream rap has been adapting to restrictive sample laws since the late 90's. Most (c)rap you hear on the radio is unlicensed sample free. Pop musicians are using stock kits or in some instances live musicians.

Underground hip-hop will continue to ignore sample laws for the most part.

What does this mean for an artist like DJ Shadow or RJD2 who could use up to 50 or 60 uncleared samples per song? For them making albums is going to get VERY expensive.