Did Producer Timbaland Steal From the Demoscene?

gloom writes "In 2000 the Finnish demoscene musician Janne Suni (also known as 'Tempest') won the Oldskool Music Competition at the Assembly demoparty with his four-channel Amiga .MOD entitled 'Acid Jazzed Evening.' A Commodore 64 musician called 'grg' remade the song on the C64 (using the infamous SID soundchip); it is this that was stolen. The producer's name is Timbaland and he is one of the hottest names in American music these days. The track in question is called 'Do it' and it is featured on the Nelly Furtado album 'Loose' on the Geffen label. Getting nowhere with Geffen, the demoscene has now risen to the aid of Tempest, first by creating a stir at SomethingAwful (files downloadable from the forum), then at Digg.com, then on YouTube, with a video demonstrating the blatant ripoff. Being an online-posting musician myself — what rights do I have if this should ever happen to me, and what can be done to raise awareness about such things?"

Re:Piracy is okay if you are rich

[Goldberg's Pants]

There's a big difference between downloading a song, and ripping off someone elses work, passing it off as your own, and making money off it, which is what this fucker Timbaland has done. It's not piracy. Piracy is when you download Nelly Furtado's album.

Outright theft is when someones work is stolen and passed off as your own FOR PROFIT.

And it's also a great example of the disparity in the legal system. This guy has been completely ripped off, and basically can't afford to take it to court, because Geffen are richer than him.

One world, under a dollar, with justice for none except the corporations.

hottest name?

[skam240]

The producer's name is Timbaland and he is one of the hottest names in American music these days.

timbaland? who the hell is that?

Stealing subconsciously?

[tepples]

There's a big difference between downloading a song, and ripping off someone elses work, passing it off as your own, and making money off it, which is what this fucker Timbaland has done.

True, sampling without permission outside a context of parody is wrong. But what if I steal and I don't know I'm stealing? How could George Harrison have caught himself and stopped himself from ripping off "He's So Fine", written by Ronald Mack and popularized by The Chiffons, when writing "My Sweet Lord"? See Cryptomnesia [wikipedia.org].

Get Legal Representation...

[masdog]

A quick browse of the Wikipedia webpage on sampling shows a number of cases where artists have been sued for sampling, so the best thing is to get yourself a lawyer who will direct you towards a good license that allows you to share your work non-commercially. If someone violates that license, you can then get that lawyer to go after them. The history of sampling cases seems to show that artists will pay you off so they don't risk a trial.

And that finnish artist...she should bring Timbaland to court in Finland. She definitely has a case against him, especially since she has prior art to back up her case.

You're unoriginal.

[Gray]

Name a type of music that has been more influential in the last 30 years..

Re:You're unoriginal.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll give you between 10 and 30 years ago, but hip-hop has been 2% talent [wikipedia.org] and 98% wannabe posers [wikipedia.org] for the last decade.

Slashdot, help me know what to think!?!!

[glamslam]

Do we support this behavior (DJ Danger Mouse) or do we not (the example above)???

what the artist is looking for...

[Anonymous Coward]

Have all Nelly Furtado CDs recalled and melted down, improving the average quality of music on the radio :)

Re:You're unoriginal.

[urbanradar]

Name a type of music that has been more influential in the last 30 years.

How about, um, rock music? Rock music in all its form hasn't exactly been out of style and dead since early 1977.

Re:Stealing subconsciously?

[Qzukk]

See Cryptomnesia

Then you say "oops, I goofed up", pay royalties if necessary, credit the orignal version, and life moves on. You probably take a credibility hit for a few weeks, then people decide your version was better anyway.

Re:You're unoriginal.

[HappySqurriel]

Name a type of music that has been more influential in the last 30 years..

Well ... Define "influential" ...

If you consider music sales [msn.com] Rock music is more popular than Rap, Hip-Hop, R&B and Urban combined. If you look at critical acclaim Rap music has only been receiving critical acclaim and awards (outside of specific genre awards) in the past 5 or so years.

And what does it matter if a musical style has been "influential" if the initial argument was that it was unoriginal? You can be very generic (and even steal other people's ideas) and still be "influential".

Re:Ha ha ha ho ho ho hee hee hee eheheheheheh

[frogstar_robot]

Why? It's pretty much the partyline that Slashdotters put out in every piracy article. Not to troll, but come on.

Ummmm. No. You're trolling. The only thing you have left to do is say "I know I'll get modded down for this but....".

You are conflating two different things together to create a straw man. The Gnutella/Limewire/eMule type of copyright infringement is about getting a copy of something without paying for it. That issue is surely a mess and I'm not arguing any of its sides now. Limewiring a freebie isn't what Timbaland has done. Timbaland is taking credit for the work of another. This is an attribution issue. It is not the same thing as downloading freebies from p2p. Arguments for and against that don't apply. This is something else entirely.

Just in case snarky arguments are being mustered, I'll explain it in simple terms: Even though Bob might download "Murder by Numbers" for free he wouldn't dream of saying he wrote it rather than Sting. In other news, Sting kicked Billy the Bar Singer's ass for doing just that the other day......

Re:Is it April 1st already?

[ZachPruckowski]

See, that would be an acceptable answer if the label Timbaland is signed to didn't go around suing people. But the major labels and their artists can't come out against piracy while coming worse infringements themselves.*

Re:You're unoriginal.

[Anonymous Coward]

name a type of music that's beat hasn't changed in the last 30 years.

it was fine in the begining but using the same baseline from a disco song from 30 years ago only twisted and distorted and passing it off as "music" can't really be considered music.

I'm not denying that rappers can rap really well but I can't stand the "music" they use for it, don't get me started on emo lyrics or the scream metal stuff either (where they figure it's ok to just constently scream into the mic and pass it off as a talent).

Re:You're unoriginal.

[bubkus_jones]

80's rock, hair metal, grunge, to name a few.

Hell, I'd wager that Van Halen (both the band and Eddie Van Halen himself) have been at least as influencial to the music industry as most rap/hip-hop artists out today combined. They not only brought about the beginnings of rock and metal in the 80's, popularizing guitar heroes like no one before, but Eddie redefined how to play the guitar (yes, many, if not most of his popular techniques have been used before, but he popularized them like no other) and redefined the guitar itself (not many people before him put humbuckers in Strats, and he helped develop the Floyd Rose vibrato bridge)

Re:Piracy is okay if you are rich

[Snarfangel]

I find it interesting that Slashdotters, for some reason, draw the line at making money off of someone else's work. Stealing it is okay, but selling it afterward is crossing the line?

If I burn a CD from a friend, the owners lose one sale. If I then make multiple copies of the music and sell it on street corners, the owners lose far more

In this case, it is like pirating the album, then claiming all sales of that album are mine. How is actual creator supposed to sell his work -- or even give it away -- if the thief is ready to assert copyright?

Re:Piracy is okay if you are rich

[HappySqurriel]

I find it interesting that Slashdotters, for some reason, draw the line at making money off of someone else's work. Stealing it is okay, but selling it afterward is crossing the line?

There are two definitions of steal that seem appropriate to this discussion

1. To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
2. To present or use (someone else's words or ideas) as one's own.

Now the first definition is what you're applying to downloading, but a lot of people have problems calling 'Downloading' 'Stealing' because the owner of the music does not lose possession of the property and you (typically) have been given permission to obtain the music through other channels; you can tape music off of the radio for personal use and most albums will have (at least locally) been played on the radio when they're released.

The second definition is directly related to what has been claimed that timbaland has done.

There is room for debate on the download and no room for debate on the Timbaland situation.

This is common practice

[jambarama]

Sample to your hearts content without permission, if you have a winner, then you pay for the license. It looks like Timbaland just forgot the last part. If the song never gets released and popular, no harm no foul right? But if you have a winner you'll be able and happy to pay for the license, so it is a no brainer to sample without permission, until you want to release it. Of course this only seems to work for those with the ability to make money off a release (big record labels), independent musicians without the exposure and protection of a big label probably won't be able to pay off the copyright holder anyway.

But Tempest is right, there is no way this'd be worth it to fight. For example Talib Kweli recently violated Ben Kweller's copyright (or more likely his label's copyright) from the song "In Other Words". Kweller replied at the end episode 7 of his youtube show One Minute Pop Song. [youtube.com] If a fairly well known artist, Ben Kweller, can't fight it, someone like Tempest has pretty poor chances.

Home sampling is probably fair use, but certainly using a sample on a record is not. If Timbaland samples Tempest at home, I think that is great. If Timbaland wants to include it on an album, there has to be some kind of recourse for the little guy covering such obvious infringement. You know if Tempest released an album (even just on the internet) sampling Timbaland the RIAA would be all over it with Lawyers. Remember The Grey Album [wikipedia.org]?

Re:Slashdot, help me know what to think!?!!

[ChaosDiscord]

You left out option three: actually understand the issues involved and stop trying to play "gotcha."

DJ Dangermouse may reuse other people's work in his own creations, but he credits his sources.

If the above is to be believed, Timbaland reused someone else's creations, but didn't credit his source. That's low. Really low. If it's true, Timbaland deserves the scorn he's getting.

Tracked music in Popcap games

[rwa2]

I've really enjoyed a lot of the Popcap games available for PDAs, especially since a lot of their optional background music seems eerily familiar from my downloaded mod files (many are available from Nectarine radio nowadays: http://www.demoscene.net/ [demoscene.net] )

OK, so it actually turns out that a lot of Future Crew's tracks were commissioned by Popcap:
http://www.futurecrew.org/skaven/music_tracker.htm l [futurecrew.org]

In any case, it's nice to see demoscene music used appropriately by folks with any decency.

Mod parent down; troll

[urbanradar]

1) Probably. 2) Who cares?

If your music is so bad that Timbaland is producing a copy of it, you should take up mime or tiddlywinks as a means of creative expression.

Consider Nelly Furtado: Intelligent, talented, creative musician who has been turned into a shite-generating whore. All thanks to Timbaland.

The person who made the original song cares. People who support justice care. Whether you like Timbaland or not doesn't enter into it. This is a question of principle.

Maybe we should just rewrite copyright law. "It is illegal to use media without permission from the original author, that is, unless the one doing the plaguarising is someone whom Slashdot user swordgeek doesn't like."

Re:Uh, okay...

[strider44]

You probably just don't have the right ear for it. If it was only the intro then I'd be dismissing it. It's not an exact copy and I'd bet you could find a few thousand pieces of music with those notes in there - it even sounded familiar to me! The melody is what is so interesting. It seriously sounds like the exact tune playing in the background - the notes are the same and even the drum beat (though it's a pretty common beat) seems to be the same.

I'd have to listen to proper high-quality versions of both to decide whether I think it's a true forgery though. If there's more of the original in the supposed forgery then that would be more evidence, but note how the tune in the intro could be easily derived from the melody - I would only put the intro being there as a minor evidence boost.

Re:Get Legal Representation...

[strider44]

Why should he answer to any court in Finland?

Because assets of the publishing company can be seized by finnish authorities. And by "prior art" I think the GP poster meant "precedent".

Re:Best argument against buying music ever

[gbulmash]

"Second, if it is not immoral for producers to "steal," then why on earth should any consumer feel guilty for taking it back?"

Ummm... because two wrongs don't make a right?

- Greg

Re:Great now they posted it on YouTube

[Almahtar]

That's the thing about the demo scene: it's not about royalties or profit, it's about the art. When someone rips that off and starts charging others for it (without so much as even giving you credit for all your work), it's completely against everything the work was originally composed for. It's like you get a gift for your kids and some jerk steals it from you, re-wraps it, and sells it to your brother as the perfect gift for his nieces/nephews.

Re:hottest name?

[Dirtside]

Seriously, it's two thousand goddamn seven, the "What is this X the article speaks of?" thing is OVER. You're on the fucking Internet, go to Google or Wikipedia and do five seconds of research. </rant>

Re:You're unoriginal.

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

In 1991, near when SoundScan was instituted, the Billboard Top 200 was rejiggered so that albums over four years old would no longer be listed. The reason was that if they had continued to be listed, they would have blocked new albums from entering the chart.
If albums over four years old could still be listed in the Top 100 and Top 200 charts, then those charts would be full of rock albums. Of course, the rock albums would mostly be over four years old, but still, they'd be there.

Re:Get Legal Representation...

[sweetooth]

Additionally, the album was likely sold by an entity in Finland as it did reach #13 on the charts there. Most likely the publishing company has a local presence that the assets can be taken from. Assuming of course that Finland has similar laws to the U.S. Of course he could always find a lawyer in the U.S. that would bring the suit in the U.S. where it would almost undoubtedly win. The downside to that is how much does the lawyer get? Probably 40-60%.

Re:Piracy is okay if you are rich

[grahammm]

It is not selling it aftwerwards that is so bad, though it is not good. What is really bad is the plagiarism, copying someone else's work and then claiming it as your own.

Re:Piracy is okay if you are rich

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

If I burn a CD from a friend, the owners lose one sale.

If you burn a CD from a friend, the copyright holders lose one sale, ASSUMING you would otherwise have bought the CD. In aggregate, the cost to the copyright holder is far less than one sale per burned CD.

If you buy a counterfeit CD, then the formula is the same (the copyright holders lose the value of the sale assuming you would otherwise have bought the CD), but the cost to the copyright holder is at least what you paid for the counterfeit CD. This makes it a lot easier to show monetary damages in court, and it's essentially impossible to justify as "not hurting anyone".

That's the difference.

Chill Bill

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he was mocking the whole one of the hottest names in American music bit by indicating that he'd never even heard of whoever the hell they were talking about. It's the first thing I thought of when I read that line, "WhoTF? is so and so?"

Re:Uh, okay...

[rblancarte]

What I don't understand is why this isn't going to court. I read the posts in SA by okkie and his

"He talked with a lawyer, he told me it would become time consuming and horrible. Record companies like Geffen have teams of lawyers and he would basically stand alone. Sad but true."

But a number of cases have happened like this, if it can be demonstrated at some reasonable level, I am sure that they could win. After all, there is a history of things like this in entertainment. I agree, it would be a long hard battle, but why not do it and get what you can?

RonB

Re:Best argument against buying music ever

[Guppy06]

"Ummm... because two wrongs don't make a right?"

It's the "consumers" (i. e. "the people") who granted the music companies their copyrights anyway. If they're not going to abide by the terms of the agreement, why shouldn't the people be allowed to revoke their copyright privileges?

Re:Piracy is okay if you are rich

[Lorkki]

Actually Internet conventional wisdom is fairly unpredictable when it comes to copyright.

That may be because you're trying to fit hundreds of thousands of people under a single stereotype.

Here's a different view:

Case 1: Metallica vs the Internet

W4reZ kid: LOL, retards. Information wants to be free. Musicians should make money from live gigs + paying for stuff is just lame anyway.

Consumer rights activist: It's copyright infringement, not stealing. Stealing is when you take something away from someone. Like when a mugger took my iRiver full of Metallica songs I'd ripped from CDs I already own. Anyway, here's a chart displaying how record sales have in fact been on a steady rise since Napster, perhaps the music industry could learn something here?

Case 2: Someone uses GPL code in a non GPL product

FOSS advocate: It's still copyright infringement, by the way, as well as a license breach. These people don't have the right to use the code that way, and they should be made aware of that if they aren't already.

Random fanatic: Burn the infidels!

Case 3: Pasty white Mac fans remix music, get sued

Original artist: Stealing! Plagiarism! Fortunately I have significantly more legal resources at hand than these guys so the copyright law applies also in practice.

W4reZ kid: Information wants to be free! Down with the big corporate money!

Case 4: A rich black man uses 4 chords from nerdy white guys

Original artist: Stealing! Plagiarism! Fortun-- oh, drat!

W4reZ kid: Damn, I don't know what to say now.

Re:Piracy is okay if you are rich

[shutdown -p now]

Anti-copyright, pro-copyleft.
Using others' works & crediting them is okay, plagiarising (using others' work and not crediting) is not.

Either way, information still wants to be free. It just includes information about the original authors.
So, what's so unpredictable and inconsistent here?