Dr. Dre to pay $1.5 mil for "Illegal Sample"

jwlidtnet writes "According to MTV, Dr. Dre has lost a lawsuit filed over a presumably-uncleared sample on his last album (Dre still hopes to appeal). This is certainly not the first time that something like this has happened: in the mid-nineties, British band The Verve were forced to pay all royalties from their song Bittersweet Symphony (*and* alter song credits) after Allen Klein--who owns the rights to the 1960's Stones catalogue--discovered that the song used a sample from an orchestral recording of "The Last Time." Thing is, though, that many groups believe that such lawsuits shouldn't occur except in the most blatant circumstances; among these groups, Musicians Against the Copyrighting of Samples and the group Negativland are perhaps the most outspoken. Should samples be protected by copyright, or should artists/musicians have the right to manipulate the old into the new?"

Right back at ya

[Mooset]

Remember kids, musicians don't steal. They SAMPLE!

Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Vanilla Ice.

Karma

[friedegg]

Dr. Dre boots users from Napster [com.com].

Not all bad

[Anonymous Coward]

If these rulings mean we don't have to hear "Bittersweet Symphony" ever again, you must admit that this is a benefit.

What's the Licence

[Prowl]

If its a BSD style licence, then there's no problem.

If its GPL, then Dre has just incurred the wrath of RMS...

"Dr Dre vs RMS"

is that the name of the lawsuit or the title of the track?

Illegal Samples

[Scoria]

Upon reading that Dr. Dre was instructed to "pay $1.5 million for an 'illegal sample,'" I was beginning to anticipate something entirely different than a story regarding lawsuits related to intellectual property. :-)

Re:Ice Ice Baby

[bathmatt]

Personally, I think that anything that Vanilla Ice does should be illegal

"Shut the fuck up and get what's comming to you"

[nagora]

Those were Dr Dre's words to Greg Palast (as reported in "The Best Democracy Moeny Can Buy") when asked about his suing of Napster to pay for infringing on his "intellectual property rights".

I DO hope the Doctor is enjoying his own medicine.

TWW

Re:Copyright

[Evil Adrian]

I think that when you are taking recorded audio directly from another source, and you are incorporating it into your own work, you should realize that you are stealing.

Like, how retarded ARE you to not figure that out?

It's not YOUR audio, it's someone else's.

DUH.

Re:Actually, no.

[cK-Gunslinger]

No, no no.

Vanilla's hook went "da-da-da-da-da-dada" while the original went "da-da-da-da-da-dada- uh.. da." See, it's that extra 'da' that makes the whole claim unfounded. ;)

Shouldn't the suit be for $900,000,000,000

[Dave21212]

That's $150,000 per song [slashdot.org] times 6 million [rollingstone.com] copies for a total of $900,000,000,000 ?

Re:Rapper scratch ?

[Dr. Photo]

Millennium-old copyrights won't exist until 2923.

Re:Not 'sampled', 'replayed'

[hondo77]

Now, if they had made up a bassline of their own, and someone found a song which played the same six notes, could they sue as well?

Ask Vanilla Ice and he will tell you that the answer is "Yes".

Re:Karma

[javiercero]

LOL, payback is a bitch, ain't it Dr?

So let me get this straight:

Dowloading songs for my own listening is a vicious crime.

Using other people's music to make tons of money w/o ever paying the original musicians is not?

Maybe Dr. Dre is a Republican with such double standards.....

Re:Right back at ya

[Anonymous Coward]

Rap is to music as the Etch-A-Sketch is to art.

ha ha

[CakerX]

can this be the same Dr. Dre shutting down napster in Y2K over copywright viloations. Well, good dr, if your gonna use other people's music, PLEASE DON'T BITCH WHEN OTHERS USE YOURS

Re:Karma

[sql*kitten]

Maybe Dr. Dre is a Republican with such double standards.....

It's worse than that, he isn't even a real doctor!