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?"

Re:One thing I have never understood

[TrollBridge]

Puffy made deals with the owners of the materials he 'sampled'.

Sure it doesn't say a lot about his... talent (*chuckle*), but at least he did it the legal way.

Actually, no.

[musiholic]

It was done by Vanilla Ice's DJ, who's name eludes me at the moment. It was also the fault of their management at the time, as both Vanilla Ice and the DJ were assured that they were getting the proper permissions to use the samples. The DJ was well aware of the implications of using samples, and assumed that the management was indeed doing the right thing. However, as it turned out, the management did NOT ask for permission, opening the door for litigation.

I will not deny that Vanilla Ice made an ass of himself with the PR surrounding all that.

Personally, if you sample, it should just be a matter of courtesy that you ask persmission. Or if you do sample, give your music away so that no one can claim royalties on it.

It was not a sample.

[eples]

From MTV's article:
"Dre testified that before hiring a musician to play a bassline from the Fatback Band's 1980 song "Backstrokin'" for his 2001 track "Let's Get High," he consulted a musicologist who said the riff was commonplace.

He had another musician play some notes - it wasn't a sample from a copyrighted work. Surely there is a difference.

This is a rare case.

[techstar25]

Since the late 80's most rappers and their respective producers normally go out of their way to make sure that all samples are cleared by the copyright holders. In the 80's Biz Markie used some samples and was sued, so since then rappers have been more careful. Of course there are always idiots who try to get away with it, like "Ice Ice Baby", sampling "Under Pressure" In most cases the copyright holders have no problem with rappers using their samples if the money is right. Dr. Dre has been using samples his whole career, so it's strange that he would get caught using a sample without proper permissions.

Re:Samples

[phat_joe23]

Fair Use IS law.

Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107 [cornell.edu] /joe

Re:Not 'sampled', 'replayed'

[dr.badass]

OK. But there was no sample. It was a replayed bass line.

There are 2 types of copyright here : One, the copyright of the song itself (picture sheet music, lyrics), and the copyright of the recording.

If you have a CD of Mozart's 'Jupiter' Symphony, the copyright of the music has long-since expired (They didn't have Disney back then), but the particular recording you're listening to is copyrighted. In such a case, you couldn't sample the recording without permission, but you could certainly play it yourself. Er...you and your orchestra.

Re:Shouldn't this be covered by fair use?

[cpt kangarooski]

No it's not. Commercial impact is a factor, but not probative. Check out the 2 Live Crew case where the Supreme Court found it fair use to make a parody of the song Pretty Woman and sell it commercially. It is also a fun read.

He did "play his own instrument"

[BlueLines]

erm, did you bother to read the article?

Dre testified that before hiring a musician to play a bassline from the Fatback Band's 1980 song "Backstrokin'" for his 2001 track "Let's Get High," he consulted a musicologist who said the riff was commonplace.

so this isn't an issue with a sample, but rather with a riff. and this is murkier ground. Note that Dre even hired a musicologist before he used the bassline. In my mind, he did the right thing, but got screwed anyway.

-BlueLines

Re:Samples

[dr.badass]

Er, bad phrasing. I considered it right after I posted, and got a 'Troll' moderation for my troubles.

Fair Use IS law, but it is not a right under law. It is a defence. (Granted, on many levels there's not much difference, but that wasn't my original point.) Quoth your link :


In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include...


Now, I am not a law student, but I think you stand on firmer ground with a parody, protected under your 1st Amendment right to free speech, than you do with calling sampling Fair Use.

Re:Sampling has been dead for 10 years

[BernardMarx]

As for the issue of whether sampling should be legal, I say yes. Check out the Beastie Boys album Paul's Boutique to hear sampling as an art form at it's peak.

Paul's Boutique is good, but Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back is excellent. It is a perfect example of how hip-hop sampling can be an artistic collage of hundreds of different samples, as opposed to the mainstream rap process of "looping", or playing someone else's track (be it guitar, bass, drum or entire song) and rapping over it. Check out PE's site here [publicenemy.com].

There is also a great issue of Stay Free Magazine [stayfreemagazine.org] (The Copyright Issue) that covers many different angles of art and copyright. It contains a brilliant interview with Public Enemy's Chuck D as well as some good articles on the public domain, Disney and the Sonny Bono Copyright extenstion act. The issue as a whole is essential reading for all those concerned with intellectual property and intellectual freedom, and I highly recommend it.

Re:Samples

[poot_rootbeer]

Take Negativland's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" : it contains a recognizable sample from U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" but is obviously an original work which is critical of the record industry establishment. While I recognize the sample, I can't find the ideas represented in the original work of U2, nor do I recognize the overall song structure. Something has obviously been created.

And that "something" has a name, and its name is "a derivative work".

Puffy essentially steals all the music from a song and sets different lyrics to it... like Wierd Al.

Not like Weird Al at all. Sean Combs pays licensing fees to the songwriters of the Police, Led Zeppelin, etc. songs that he 'remixes' into his own work.

Al Yankovic is creating works of parody, which he is allowed to do without paying license feea. Still, he (usually? always?) seeks the permission of the artists whose music he parodies, and most enthusiastically give their blessings.

Re:Right back at ya

[colonel blood]

Sampling refers to making a digital (ie. virtually exact) copy. If you admit to sampling a copyright recording it potentially infringes three copyrights - regardless of creativity.

Whereas, lifting a riff is essentially replaying.

Legally, copyright in a song resides in the combination of chord progression + lyric + melody.

Therefore, you cannot sample the Stones, but you can reuse/replay/reorder elements of their music. That is what they did when they were 'influenced' by the blues.

Remember, there are only 12 notes in an octave and then they repeat. And don't forget that classical composers have used other composers melodies thru history, not just 20th Century.

Hope that makes some sense.

Re:Plagiarizing Music...I'm divided

[rmjiv]

... Will Smith's song, "Men in Black"? The whole thing is a remake and rewording of an older song (someone pleeeease help me identify it

The original song is Forget-Me-Nots by Patrice Rushen. According to this [geocities.com] site, Weird Al has also done a version of it.

Re:Right back at ya

[version5]

a lot of Autechres work is hip hop inspired... Boards Of Canada, for example, nice mellow synths and pads with lazy hip hop beats to boot.

That's just ridiculous. Now I mean no disrespect to the genre, but not everything is Hip Hop. I hear that a whole lot by people who are trying a little too hard to prove the cultural relevancy, and its almost always based on the rather tenuous claim that they are all using Hip Hop beats. Its a narrow-minded, hiphop-centric view, IMO. You've got it backwards. In terms of rhythm, the "hip hop beats" are no different to rock beats.

Hip hop does differ from rock in its emphasis on the beat, however it is not unique in this respect. Similarly, much of electronic music places a great deal of emphasis on the beats, but this is not to say that its a descendant of hip hop. Indeed, electronic music in the form of techno evolved concurrently with hip hop, both drawing on Funk and R&B of the 60s and 70s.

Techno also drew on the new sounds that were coming out of Europe. The orginators of Detroit Techno like Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson (who were all black, btw) were heavily influenced by Kraftwerk, who were themselves influenced by the German avant garde electronic composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, and bands like Tangerine Dream. Afrika Bambaata, often called the Godfather of Hip Hop, was also heavily influenced by Kraftwerk, combining it with Hip Hop to produce Electro, and even sampling their records. Kraftwerk, by way of Afrika Bambaata, introduced the Hip Hop world the idea of using drum machines. As the Beastie Boys said, "Nothing sounds quite like an 808," referring to the Roland TR-808 drum machine, which is still heavily used by hiphop and electronic music producers today. Kraftwerk also inspired 80's New Wave like New Order, Depeche Mode, KMFDM and ultimately Front 242 too.

Its accurate to say that Hip Hop had some degree of influence electronic music, but House and Techno were inspired by Disco for its dance-oriented beats, something that Hip Hop never really did. Also, electronic music makes much heavier use of synths than does Hip Hop. To say that Boards of Canada and Autechre has some Hip Hop influence is probably true, but not very significant. That's why I say you are being narrow-minded, because there is a much much larger inspiration from Kraftwerk, both in philosopically and sonically.

Its my opinion that Hip Hop is in fact a subset of a larger collection of futuristic electronic genres. Being the most visible, its easy to see it as the artistic leader. I say this because electronic music encompasses many different tempos and feelings, from beatless Ambient to frenetic 180bpm of drum 'n bass, but Hip Hop characteristically stays within a much narrower range. To answer Eminem - Yes, lots of people listen to Techno, they just call it Hip Hop ;)

Its easy for Hip Hop fans to trumpet the international success of the genre as a global validation of the genre, and there's an even greater temptation to mythologize it, but look at 'Classic Rock'. Everyone used to think that 70s-style Rock 'n Roll would live forever, but that idea is kind of a nostalgic joke today. I have no doubt that 20 years from now, we will look at the Ja Rule and the bling-bling era in the same way.