Making and Detecting Illegal Music

Demona writes "Long-time music aficionado Dave Marsh has an article in the latest edition of Counterpunch entitled Sampler's Delight. Giving rave reviews to "Nothing to Fear", the latest in a long line of so-called illegal music, he also describes a "'major label waveform CD database,' which is capable of recognizing materials allegedly owned by the record label cartel." This database is allegedly why a UK pressing plant rejected the initial attempt at publishing "Nothing To Fear", which is comprised almost entirely of sampled material."

Comments

I thought satire was protected.

[_aa_]

What more blatent example of satire can there be than an artist scrambling and re-arranging the works of other artists for the sake of mockery. I myself enjoy warping and "Mashing" otherwise lame recordings. If someone can take one creation, and turn it into another, it should be respected as a seperate work of art. Besides, I haven't seen an original concept in popular music for years. Most modern music is just recycled chords, lyrics, and beats.

You have it backwards

[pla]

Hasn't Puff Daddy ... proven your assertion already?

Except... (Skip the obvious troll to get to my point)

Puffy took *good* music and turned it into complete crap.

However, you raise a good point.

Why can *he* steal 90% of a song, unmodified, and sell it as "his" work, while these other "illegal" artists take small clips and heavily modify them, yet the result counts as a copyright violation?

The answer?

Puffy sells.

These other groups do not.

At the "Negativland" link, it mentions that the fee, $70k, exceeds their *total* sales in 14 years. That does not make the labels money.

I think that about sums up anything we can discuss on this topic. Copyright violations only matter if no one makes money off it (interestingly, the exact *opposite* of what the law says, where penalties come in direct proportion to how much someone profits from the use of stolen material). Make the RIAA money, regardless of how, or prepare to face legal battles the likes of which even Puffy couldn't weather. Fortunately for Puffy, and Wierd Al, and every other SUCCESSFUL artist that makes "derivative" works, the RIAA can make enough off the music to keep them at bay.

It's about time.

[grumpygrodyguy]

I was hoping to hear from these guys. In the early 90's Hip-hop was very much on its way to becoming the next big thing.(Yes I'm a white boy, but I liked it OK?)

There was a big arm-wresting match over sampling rights. In the end the record companies won by suing and threatening artists who used samples in thier music. The practice was further erased by requiring artists to "clear" thier samples ahead of time with the recording studios, many of which required the artist to pay royalties on each sample used.

This was a very real and demonstrable case where RIAA-like tactics destroyed a promising art form. I think it's another reason why digitally traded music should be allowed to flourish...simply because it re-creates an environment where this type of music can start again where it left off.

Re:misleading

[Saeger]

Whick reminds me (every time) of a great short story...

"Artists have been deluding themselves for centuries with the notion that they create. In fact they do nothing of the sort. They discover. Inherent in the nature of reality are a number of combinations of musical tones that will be perceived as pleasing by a human central nervous system. For millennia we have been discovering them, implicit in the universe--and telling ourselves that we `created' them. To create implies infinite possibility, to discover implies finite possibility. As a species I think we will react poorly to having our noses rubbed in the fact that we are discoverers and not creators."

She stopped speaking and sat very straight. Unaccountably her feet hurt. She closed her eyes, and continued speaking.

"My husband wrote a song for me, on the occasion of our fortieth wedding anniversary. It was our love in music, unique and special and intimate, the most beautiful melody I ever heard in my live. It made him so happy to have written it. Of his last ten compositions he had burned five for being derivative, and the others had all failed copyright clearance. But this was fresh, special--he joked that my love for him had inspired him. The next day he submitted it for clearance, and learned that it had been a popular air during his early childhood, and had already been unsuccessfully submitted fourteen times since its original registration. A week later he burned all his manuscripts and working tapes and killed himself."

Would you like to read more? :)

--

What's wrong with sampling?

[rweir]

Seriously, why should they be able to stop people?

If I buy a copy of some mix CD that happens to sample Britney, surely records companies don't actually think they're missing out on a Britney sale? I'm not even a 'potential' customer, so they're not even losing a pretend "if it weren't for napster we would have sold 10 trillion copies of the latest Backstreet boys album, therefore napster has to pay us <pinkypoint to="mouth">one hundred trillion dollars</pinkypoint>"-type sale.