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

A great way of detecting illegal music:

[Bowie J. Poag]

cd mp3; ls *

Cheers,

Re:A great way of detecting illegal music:

[ekrout]

This is Slashdot. Don't you mean:

cd ogg; ls *

;-)

Re:A great way of detecting illegal music:

[packeteer]

Actually not really. Most of the time when people have a .ogg file it is something they ripped from their own cd. MP3's are more often swapped files that they never ripped themselves.

Poor media companies

[Anonymous Coward]

Purchasing laws deosn't work. Technology doesn't work either. Freedom is a bitch, isn't it Valenti and Rosen?

Illegal?

[nastro]

Pac-Man Fever should have been illegal. They dropped the ball on that 15 years ago, however.

Re:Yah sure

[Anonymous Coward]

So,

I should write my code in assembler and never use anyone elses code or libraries.

Yeh we need some more people doing that, I only have libjpeg but i want a statically compiled propritory image format in each application.

"We can see as far as we can today, because we stand of the shoulders of giants."

Re:Yah sure

[phillymjs]

Does anybody really expect that Resampling crappy music is really going to result in anything other then just more crappy music?

What do you mean "expect"? Hasn't Puff Daddy (or whatever the fuck he's calling himself until his next court appearance) proven your assertion already?

If anything should be prevented, it should be God-awful remixes and covers... Britney Spears should never have been able to cover a Rolling Stones song, and whoever put forth the abominable 'club remix' cover of Bryan Adams' "Heaven" should be lowered slowly into a wood chipper, feet first.

~Philly

doesn't seem factual

[sleeper0]

quote from the article:

Seems there now exists a technology called the "major label waveform CD database," which is capable of recognizing materials allegedly owned by the record label cartel. I thought this was a hoax, just something added to spice up the story, until I read a story in J@pan Inc Magazine (June 26) about a company called Gracenote, which specializes in "music recognition service," the software that lets your CD player tell you which artist and track are currently playing. It's pretty easy to see how the RIAA and its international counterpart, IFPI, could use the same technology to track "bootleggers" [...]

As a lot of readers probably know gracenote uses simple metrics about the length of the songs and their position on the cd to check a database to find likely matches. Gracenote maintains nothing of the sort of a waveform database.

While i believe there is/was at least one startup that was working to match music using a beats & tone analysis method that could match to songs that had been shifted or obscured in some way, i'm not sure this technology has ever been in real use.

The idea that there is some huge waveform database that cd pressing plants now use is pretty suspicious. I think working in the industry i would have heard about it, even if it was kept secret the storage capacity and processing needs would be astronomical. 11,000 albums heavily compressed to 160kbps still takes approximately 600gb, I understand that the amount of in print US albums is somewhere between 200,000 - 300,000 and more like 600,000 for world releases (in print only). Searching through a collection like that would easily take days or weeks depending on how small a segment you were trying to match

Re:doesn't seem factual

[sleeper0]

I should note that it would be easy to use such a database to detect pure pirates... ie people pressing exact duplicates of commercial albums. But the article is about a recycled beats record, something made presumably by tens of thousands of samples put together. Certainly not going to match in gracenote, unless it was a random false match which does happen.

Difference between MP3z and "Illegal Music"

[yerricde]

Most MP3 files downloaded via a P2P service are illegal no matter what. However, possession of a copy of one of these recordings is illegal even if you have purchased a CD because they're "derivative works" of 1. a musical work and 2. a sound recording. Copyright owners have won infringement lawsuits over four notes from a musical work and over one note from a sound recording. (The latter link will tell you that the four-note rule does not apply, but the four-note rule applies to musical works, which are independent of any recording of such works.)

When there are fewer than 50,000 possible melodies, how can anybody write new music? "Apparently, they just do" does not answer the question.

Re:Difference between MP3z and "Illegal Music"

[blincoln]

A clarification: while there was a lawsuit over four notes, that does not mean there is a "four note rule." As the second article you link to states, the test is for the tune being "substantially similar." It can be one, four, or whatever.
The "four note rule" is in many ways equivalent to the "24 hour rule" and "after X years it's abandonware rule" for pirated software - an urban legend that can prove dangerous to people who put faith in it.

Re:Difference between MP3z and "Illegal Music"

[packeteer]

The thing that worries me the most about this topic is the mention of "waveform tetectors" its all fine if someone can say "hey thats my music" but if now they have patents on simple waveforms its going to be VERY hard to write your own music and i DONT think its because we have founbd all the melodies

Re:Difference between MP3z and "Illegal Music"

[NortWind]

When there are fewer than 50,000 possible melodies, how can anybody write new music?

If you have four notes from a diatonic scale, there are only 20,736 possibilities (12^4, excluding timing variations.) Quite a bit under 50,000.

Here's an interesting page on Ogg Vorbis/MP3/etc getting the identity of what you are listening, called MusicBrainz. It is GNU open sourced.

Re:Difference between MP3z and "Illegal Music"

[andfarm]

Very simple.

Stop using the 12-tone scale! Example: Teka i se rraki does not -- as far as I know -- infringe any copyrights. Even by this definition.

Re:Difference between MP3z and "Illegal Music"

[beowulfcluster]

Notes have length as well as pitch. If you play C, D, E, F as 8th notes you will have a different melody than if you play C as a 32nd, D as a 16th, E as an 8th and F as a 4th and so on. The same notes (with same lengths) played over a C major chord will sound different than when played over an A minor chord as well. Should a melody in a song be defined just by the notes in the actual melody or by the melody together with the underlying chord progression (which has a big effect on how the melody sounds)?

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.

Re:I thought satire was protected.

[singularity]

Did you read the article? The artist in question was not trying to mock or satirize the music he sampled. Rather, he created a CD by mixing hundreds, and probably thousands of samples.

Like it or not, if someone takes something that an artist created (and copywrites) and turns around to use that to make money, I think there is a valid complaint to make.

This is entirely separate than the argument against music sharing. If I download a song by Pearl Jam, not only is it marked as being done by the original artist, but, more importantly, no one makes or loses money on the deal.

Suppose I take a bunch of downloaded music, burn it to disk, and give it to a friend. While the artist might lose money that he/she is otherwise entitled to, no one actively makes money on the deal.

On the other hand, if I take a bunch of downloaded music, burn it to disk, and then sell it, then the artist is missing out on his/her valid right to his or her share.

I am not saying that what the artist in the article did was not deserving of money, and definitely required artistic talent, but I do think that some of any money he makes off the music should go back to the original artists.

As far as the waveform library goes, I think it much more likely that someone at the pressing factory simply listed to the music and realized that the CD contains.

Re:I thought satire was protected.

[sleeper0]

I wonder what the deal is with the record being available for purchase? I just paid $12 for it at the record store that was linked to for the cd info. So can you sell this stuff or not? or is the record store in question essentially selling a bootleg? They are even signed by the guy who made it, i dunno.

Re:I thought satire was protected.

[yusing]

Most modern music is just recycled chords, lyrics, and beats.

Most of *all* music is just recycled chords and beats. Drummers have always recycled each other. Beethoven and Mozart recycled Haydn, Stravinsky recycled Tchaikovsky. The middle ages troubadors recycled each other. Gregorian chants recycled elements of other Gregorian chants. Jazz players float improvisations on familiar phrases from other tunes.

All of this was once *fluid and free*. Sometimes major ideas got recycled. Sometimes that was subconscious, sometimes not. The point is, it was *accepted practice*. How many famous classical pieces are titled "Variations on a theme by...".

*A degree of familiarity is an essential element of the music most people like.* That familiarity comes from the recycling of musical elements created by other musicians.

The corporations fighting sampling are trying to control artistic expression to maximize profits. This attempt is seen by many as a direct attack on the musical tradition. The idea of "fair use" was supposed to protect such creativity bottlenecks.

Re:I thought satire was protected.

[_aa_]

I can't honestly presume to know wether the artist's intent was to satire or not. Legality aside, I stand by my statement that the artist's output is a wholly seperate artwork and should be treated as such. This may not be the most valid or noteworthy artwork, but someday, an artist will create something beautiful and intelligent and thought-provoking, that the public may never be able to enjoy because the tools the artist used are copyrighted by a large company. In my opinion, art is not a product, and every effort should be made to make all artworks, regardless of their "quality" as available as possible.

I do agree that an artist's work should not be used to make money, however, I don't beleive that any artwork should be used to make money. There's a difference between selling a song for profit and selling it to fund an artist's survival and future work. An ARTIST does not create to make money. If you get into hip-hop for the $$$ and the booty and the ***BliNg***BlInG***, then what you are outputting is a product, not an artwork, regardless of your talent. And furthermore, you are not an artist, you are an entrepreneur.

That being said, if it is not illegal to use a Campbell's Soup can (a product) in your artwork, it should conversly not be illegal to use some record company's product in your artwork.

Re:I thought satire was protected.

[acoustiq]

scrambling and re-arranging the works of other artists...I myself enjoy warping and "Mashing" otherwise lame recordings...Most modern music is just recycled chords, lyrics, and beats.

Recycled? Maybe because even you yourself enjoy re-arranging the works of other artists?

Re:I thought satire was protected.

[_aa_]

Exactly.. I did not say "most modern music is bad" and I certainly did not say "recycling stuff is bad". You missed the entire point of my comment.

Re:I thought satire was protected.

[captaineo]

You are correct. Satire (using elements of a copyrighted work for comical/ludicrous effect) is not protected. Only parody (using elements of a copyrighted work to make fun of the work itself) is.

e.g. if a Saturday Night Live sketch featured actors dressed up as Star Wars characters in order to make fun of Star Wars, that would be fair use (parody). But if they were making fun of American politics (satire), they would need a license from Lucasfilm.

Of course this distinction is pretty ridiculous... It's the result of copyright holders successfully claiming that copyright is an absolute "property right" (which it is not).

Re:I thought satire was protected.

[BrynM]

This is a recuring question in modern music. Did I, as an artist, own the rights to the song as a whole or do I own the rights to every combination (or lack) of notes that have been recorded?

During the advent of sampling, keyboard players argued this actively. A keyboard player could sample a single note from... let's say a bass line and span that sample across the keyboard. The player could then play his/her keyboard and it would sound like that bass (or even something new/different if the sample is altered). Keyboard players in cover bands know this trick well.

Since most musicians spend a long time -years sometimes- to develop a good tone or sound, it was debated if tone could be stolen. Companies that produced volumes of pre-made samples for keyboard players would be pissed if they found out that someone had sampled their product and used it - even if the user didn't know they had sampled a sample. Oddly enough, this theivery is an often accepted in the music world (this may be different where you live or in what genre you adopt, but this has been my experience).

The reason is that this type of theft cannot be stopped. It's simply impossible to police every sampling device everywhere. I think this is the logical end to the DJ-Sampling/MP3/P2P debate as well.

I do wish people would include a source list of samples though. It seems like a respectful thing to do, but the current momentum cannot be stopped...

Re:How can you MAKE illegal music

[Niadh]

Make a song detailing how to decrypt dvds.

Why do you keep supporting them?

[Vic]

If major labels are bothering you all so much, why do you keep supporting them by talking about their bands, trading their music, grudgingly BUYING THEIR CDs??

Sometimes I just don't get the Slashdot crowd... Many of us use Linux and have given up on using Microsoft stuff, but when it comes to the latest crappy mainstream music, we whine that we can't pirate it? Come on.... If you really feel that major labels are screwing you, give them up. Support inedepent musicians and labels.

There's a whole world of music out there that is cheaper, more interesting, more cutting-edge, etc..etc... You just have to look a little harder to find it, just like you had to try a bit harder to get Linux installed and your closed-source applications replaced by Free Software.

Sorry for the rant...you might mod me down, but really....If some big companies are doing something you don't like, forget about them and move on to something better.

Cheers,
Vic

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[Beautyon]

Come on.... If you really feel that major labels are screwing you, give them up. Support inedepent musicians and labels.

Peoples tastes in music, no matter if they post on Slashdot or not are very deeply entrenched in conventional, monopoly music.

Music is so much a part of a persons life that you are basically asking people to stop being who they are overnight, for a cause. Choosing to listen to non cartel music is not like switching between Windows and OSX, or choosing to use Open Source software exclusively. Can you imagine a Led Zep fan choosing to give up Led Zep because they are on Atlantic? Impossible. Thats what you are asking people to do.

Because The Monopoly has control of essentially the entire spectrum of music culture, for the majority of people, even people on Slashdot, dropping Monopoly music means cutting yourself off from that mainstream music culture, which is unthinkable to all but the truest of believers.

Of course, people who have already made this decision, for whatever reason, do not miss Mainstream Monopoly Mush at all, but its impossible to convince people that they would be "better off", because, like learning a new OS, it takes some work to reap the huge benefits.

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[garcia]

problem is, for the most part, independants are not w/a major label b/c they play music that is not good for the ears of most.

I listen to plenty of bands that are independents and I know (from the complaints of my gf, roommate, and friends) that the music sucks to them (mainstreamers, shessh).

Linux was something that the community could improve on. Music is more individual, we can't help the artists to get that much better (yeah, monetarily, but nothing else).

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[Arcaeris]

Feel free to rant. Lemme say, though, that I disagree.

I'm sure all of the Slashdot readers who use Linux do it because they find it to be better. For them, it's what they'd like to have instead of Windows, and even then there's competition between distros. They've chosen it because it's what they like.

As for music, I continue to buy CDs or justy pirate mainstream music. I'm sure many others do as well. I think it follows the same idea, though: It's better. I can appreciate that some independent bands are making great music that is just waiting to be heard. However, others are just pouring shit in my ears.

There's more to music than "cutting-edge" or "cheaper" or even "more interesting" - there's quality. I want quality music that I like. So far, for me, it seems to mostly come out of the major record labels. By buying CDs, I know I'm kicking myself in the foot. However, by pirating music, I'm getting both the music I like AND sticking it to the recording industry.

If the RIAA came out with a different, fair business model tomorrow, I'd go wholeheartedly with them. They do bring to the forefront lots of great music. By only seeking independnt music, you really lose out on a lot.

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[xenoweeno]

Can you imagine a Led Zep fan choosing to give up Led Zep because they are on Atlantic? Impossible. Thats what you are asking people to do.

This is a non-sequitir. Music this old can easily be had cheaper than retail. The second-hand market is way underexplored.

Giving up something that a person has been listening to for decades is difficult, I grant you, but I simply can't imagine that it's that difficult to make a conscious decision to not buy the latest top-40 dreck--or to at least wait a few weeks for it turn up on the second-hand market.

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[Beautyon]

This is a non-sequitir. Music this old can easily be had cheaper [ebay.com] than [ebay.com] retail [ebay.com]. The second-hand market is way underexplored.

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to convey; the original poster is asking people to give up something that they really love. I used Led Zep as an example of something that would be too good to give up just because it is on a monopoly label. You can substitute something contemporary that a young ignorant whippersnapper would love as much, that is of a similar quality on a monopoly label....ummmm....that isnt doable is it?!

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[Arcaeris]

Okay, thanks.

Have anything constructive to add to the discussion?

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[JamesOfTheDesert]

Can you imagine a Led Zep fan choosing to give up Led Zep because they are on Atlantic? Impossible. Thats what you are asking people to do.

If Zep fans found out (and this is completely for the sake of example) that Atlantic was funding Al Qaeda, don't you think they might at least stop *buying* Atlantic products?

The question is, how onerous are the actions of the RIAA, and at what point do your principles override your cultural conveniences?

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[xenoweeno]

I used Led Zep as an example of something that would be too good to give up just because it is on a monopoly label.

And my response was that this is a non-sequitur. You can keep your Led Zep, perfectly legally fair-and-square thanks to the second-hand market, and not support the cartel at the same time.

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[Beautyon]

The question is, how onerous are the actions of the RIAA, and at what point do your principles override your cultural conveniences?

Anyone that knows the facts realzes that the RIAA is beyond intolerable. From the DAT tax outrage, to the killing of Napster to the DRM that they are trying to force into every device, it should be clear to everyone that these people are a threat, to creativity and innovation as well as free expression in music.

The question is not at what point do the actions of the RIAA become too onerous. That point has already been passed. The REAL question is when are people going to stop buying and file trading monopoly music? It is important that the file trading of monopoly music stops, because the act of listening to it takes away attention from non monopoly music.

Non monopoly music needs to be distributed and listened to far and wide. This is essential. Many labels are taking the bold step of uncopyrighting their materials, but this alone is not enough.

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[JaredOfEuropa]

Most objections I hear against the big record labels is not that they are preventing us from making illegal copies of their music, but that they are taking away several of our rights in the process.

"Forget about them" as you say, and you'll find that one day that the movie you taped will no longer play at your friend's house, or that you no longer can transfer the CD you bought to Minidisc for your walkman. Worse, you may also find that DRM has effectively barred independent labels from the market. The measures proposed by the RIAA aim to prevent piracy, but they will also assert a large measure of control over the distribution of music. I bet the RIAA is fuly aware of that.

Simply stop buying their music, and they'll probably claim their slumping sales on piracy, and call for even harsher measures. Don't lose sight of the bigger picture!

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[WWWWolf]

If major labels are bothering you all so much, why do you keep supporting them by talking about their bands, trading their music, grudgingly BUYING THEIR CDs??

I discuss about "major labels" and their "bands" all the time on and off Slashdot. But, I don't really trade their music that much, and I definitely don't buy them.

Life as a (supposedly) poor student is simple: 20 for a hour of stereo music, of which maybe one or two songs may be rememberable enough - or 22 for a feature movie with sharp picture, great sound and extras? I'll give you three guesses which I usually pick... I don't buy CDs unless they manage to make an album with 90% of Good Stuff, and that is very rare these days. =)

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[Nodatadj]

Steinski is hardly mainstream music.

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[solferino]

good comment

if you don't give yr power away
then ppl can't use that power to oppress you

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[Zebbers]

by that concept you can have any music fair and square without supporting the cartel, since nearly every cd(especially new releases) are available used.

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[tmark]

simple: 20 for a hour of stereo music, of which maybe one or two songs may be rememberable enough - or 22 for a feature movie with sharp picture, great sound and extras?

I've paid $20 for a CD with a SINGLE song I like, because I get great enjoyment from a single song I enjoy, and listen to such songs over and over.

I can't go see a movie more than once for my ticket.

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[BollocksToThis]

Many of us use Linux and have given up on using Microsoft stuff, but when it comes to the latest crappy mainstream music, we whine that we can't pirate it?

Umm, I don't think anyone's complaining that they can't pirate the latest Nsync shite.

I think the most common complaint is that the sharing method is being attacked and neutered, so the only music they can realistically find out about and listen to is the latest Nsync shite.

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[garcia]

billy,

you can be such a brat. when have i ever told you that your music sucks??!!!

Kim

owned ;)

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[nidarus]

Sometimes I just don't get the Slashdot crowd... Many of us use Linux and have given up on using Microsoft stuff, but when it comes to the latest crappy mainstream music, we whine that we can't pirate it?

Ah. But music is not like software. You can't just buy "a comparable free alternative". If you happen to like The Rolling Stones*, you don't find a band that's "the same as The Rolling Stones, but free" the same way you can do with, say, an OS.

Music is art. Art is unique. Software is replaceable. If you don't like a particular program, you could use a similiar program that does the same thing, and not lose anything. On the other hand, would you consider saying "Oh, The Beatles*? Never listened to them. Nope. Don't listen to Monopoly-owned bands. It's all mainstream crap, anyway"?

The problem is not "The big companies are making expensive music with restrictive licensese", but rather "The big companies keep us from listening to the music we like".

* Replace that with your favorite "mainstream" band, if you find The Rolling Stones and The Beatles too old/not enough disco-oriented/whatever. Using a newer band would bring a lot more discussion about it being "mainstream shite".

(btw, I really hope that you're trolling, and that the people that modded you up were very very drunk, as my opinion of the "slashdot crowd" just sunk to a new low)

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[Beautyon]

cartel, since nearly every cd(especially new releases) are available used.

Of course, its total nonsense. Also, when you spend your time and money buying second hand catrel music, you are taking away these two most crucial things from independent music.

Part of the problem is that there are always people like this who have zero understanding of the dynamics involved. We not only have to fight against the monopoly, but also dumbasses.

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[andyt]

Um... I'm guessing we're talking about DVDs rather than going to see a movie. The "extras" things and all...

Re:Why do you keep supporting them?

[Harik]

You're an idiot if you think slashdot readers use linux. Most of them are too stupid to install ANYTHING, and use whatever comes on their "Dude! I got a Dell!"

Ask Taco about the browser percentages. Shit, slashtwats don't even install mozilla for windows!

So it's not surprising to know they all jerk off to Britney Spears CDs while having fantasies about BsB/N'Sync orgies. Why else all the interest in Lance Bass Goes To Russia?

This message written on mozilla, running linux 2.4.20-pre5 while eating food I cooked myself and listening to a college radiostation showcasing local talent.

To all the Moderators: At least put down your McBurger and turn off your McRadio before marking this as a troll.

--Dan

Four notes == infringement

[yerricde]

I remember something about copyright law and music: you are legally allowed to use 4 measures or 10?

You're allowed to use three notes, as long as they aren't a sample. For more information, read my other comment.

Gracenote

[fenix down]

Doesn't Gracenote work by track lengths on the CD? I always thought that was why Windows Media Player said my Rogue Spear CD was Hell Freezes Over by The Eagles.

Re:Gracenote

[fidget42]

From what I remember, Gradenote (or CDDB.com) looks at the catalog track. It takes the number of tracks and the checksum of the catalog to determine an ID for the disk. It then takes this ID and looks it up in its database. I have had some CDs present me with a list of 8+ possible matches, asking me to resolve the conflict.

Re:Gracenote

[Suppafly]

Just because gracenote runs cddb, doesn't mean that they aren't allowed to run other business ventures using different technology.

Is that even possible?

[yerricde]

Why don't these people put their time to some constructive use and learn how to write actual music on their own

Could it perhaps be because songwriters either are close to running out of unique melodies or already have run out of unique melodies? (There exist fewer than 50,000 possible melodies; read this article to see why.)

Re:Is that even possible?

[Com2Kid]

Key phrase here;

Now, 36 to the third power equals 46,656 distinct melodies. No other melodies are possible in the Western musical scale.

Welcome to the world of Digital, why the hell are you still obeying such arbitrary and out dated dogma?

I predict that the next big phase shift will be artists just manipulating SIN waves directly, many real time alternative performances already do this, the only real limiting factor is that a genius great enough has yet to come along. Imagine thinking of a song and just typing it in to the computer directly, no notes, just pure mathematical harmony.

Yah sure the brain power required would be enormous, but it would only take one great musician doing such to take the world by storm and pretty much force other musicians up to that level.

Re:Is that even possible?

[bp33]

> manipulating SIN waves directly

OK now you're talking about the pr0n industry.

Re:Is that even possible?

[Com2Kid]

*notes this is what he gets for spending to many yaers on a TI calc*

This is the music equivalent of flamebait...

[AndersM]

Such releases are quite similar to flamebait on slashdot, except that the flaming that follows is written in legalese, and, well, karma isn't what they should be afraid of losing... =)

The company was Relatable

[yerricde]

While i believe there is/was at least one startup that was working to match music using a beats & tone analysis method that could match to songs that had been shifted or obscured in some way

That was Relatable.

i'm not sure this technology has ever been in real use.

Napster 10.x used it. MusicBrainz uses it.

11,000 albums heavily compressed to 160kbps still takes approximately 600gb

Relatable claims that its tech can identify songs down to 16 kbps.

Re:Write your own damn music.

[dietz]

can't you see that sampling without permission, and then selling the copies, is illegal for a reason?

I absolutely can not see that. This is our culture we're sampling. I agree that it wouldn't be fair to copy your entire album and sell it, but if I just sample 5 or 10 or 30 seconds of it, how is that impacting the sales of your album?

No one is going to say "Oh, I'm not going to buy that old Beach Boys album because artist Xyzzy used a 12 second sample of it, and those were the only 12 seconds I wanted anyway!" No one chose to buy Plunderphonics because they couldn't afford the original version of the Beatles' "A Day In The Life", so they decided a chopped-up unrecognizable version of the ending would be close enough.

Copyright is there to give the artist incentive to create. Sampling laws don't do that. No one says "I'm going to create a great song so that it can be sampled a lot and I can collect royalties." That's just a happy side benefit to selling albums.

But sampling laws DO encourage people not to create by giving them a limited pallete to work with.

laws of parody?

[phorm]

I'm not sure exactly how it works, but is there not a certain degree of freedown allowable in reference parodies? Negativland may have gone a bit far in this case by using clips from the songs, but I've seen lots of other parodies that seemed to go father...

Re:laws of parody?

[scott1853]

Have any of those other bands released an album with the name of the band they copied music from in big bold letters on the cover, and their own name in fine print at the bottom?

Re:laws of parody?

[EverDense]

Have any of those other bands released an album with the name of the band they copied music
from in big bold letters on the cover, and their own name in fine print at the bottom?

Warrant released an album in 1992 entitled "Dog Eat Dog"
Subsequently Dog Eat Dog released an album in 1993 entitled "Warrant"

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.

Re:You have it backwards

[dirk]

While agree with Puffy taking good music and making crap, the difference isn't that he makes money, the difference is that he pays for the songs he mutilates and the original artists get credit for their portion. If you look at "Missing You" (I think that's what it's called, the one that sampled the Police's "Every Breathe You Take") you'll see that the Police share writing credit on it, because they wrote the original. Compare that to this where Steinski takes complete credit for everything written on it. The original artists don't get credit, much less paid for their work. You simply cannot take someone's work, claim it as your own and use it however you like. You need their permission to use their work.

Can't even write your own damn music

[yerricde]

Fortunately there's an easy solution. Write and sell music of your own

Do you guarantee that the solution you mention is even possible to perform? See my other comment.

Four notes is an approx of "substantially similar"

[yerricde]

As the second article you link to states, the test is for the tune being "substantially similar."

However, even though I know that "substantial similarity" is strictly not a statistical measure, four notes is the best statistical approximation of "substantially similar" that I have ever found. Do you have a better one? And how does a songwriter determine whether or not a work that he or she created is "substantially similar" to at least one of the million or so musical works still under copyright?

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:It's about time.

[GlassUser]

I have to at least think of the artist on this one. How would you feel if someone took your hard work and used it for something that you may not even like, without so much as a "how do you do"? Of course I don't know how it happened, perhaps the second artist asked, or at least credited the first. And of course your point doesn't relate to the artist at all, which is exactly how the studios and cartel want it.

Re:It's about time.

[GigsVT]

How would you feel if someone took your hard work and used it for something that you may not even like, without so much as a "how do you do"?

You are talking to a bunch of GPL and BSD supporters. I don't think that's a very strong argument here.

Re:It's about time.

[GlassUser]

But you do that with the intention of it being shared. Do they?

Re:It's about time.

[GigsVT]

But you do that with the intention of it being shared. Do they?

I'm sure every artist wants people to never play their music except through earphones turned way down so no one else can hear it. Of course they want their work shared. They want to be compensated too through, some want way too much compensation, but that is irrelevant. It's not the artist that are the problem, it's the media cartels.

Re:It's about time.

[Nodatadj]

Or maybe this is the result?

Re:Write your own damn music.

[AlexMax2742]

Except that they are writing their own music. If an artist makes a collage,made out of stuff he got out of newspapers, does it make him any less of an artist?

Sampling fees are another issue. I do not know what record companies charge for sampling fees, but if they are anything like the prices that they rip us off with CD's with, then I don't blame them. Artists need to be paid, but the amount of this that goes to the record companies is just ridiculous.

Re:Write your own damn music.

[blincoln]

Exactly.
Sampling is the art of collage on a sonic level. Incorporating parts of popular culture into a work can be a very effective commentary, as well as a way to call up people's conscious and subconscious associations with the sampled source.
Skinny Puppy is an excellent example of how sampling can be used in the right hands. I don't think anyone would argue that their use of - say - brief samples of a Bugs Bunny cartoon would detract from the value of the original work, which is all the should really matter as far as copyright law is concerned.

Crappy rips

[DBordello]

I think that most of the rips on p2p networks are sooo shitty that no software could detect anything. Ever try getting a song off kazaa? You are lucky if there isn't at least 10 flwas. I have trouble figuring out what I am listening through the static, let alone some software.

Did anyone consider this?

[moertle]

From the Plunderphonic site:

Note: It costs us quite a bit of money to afford the bandwidth so that we can offer these files to you. Please consider a donation. Thanx for your support!

I'm sure a good slashdotting will really hit their pockets hard.

50,000 possible melodies

[oliverthered]

Hmm...
There may only be 50,000 possible melodies but,

I play the guitar, and I can bend or tremmilo a note, vary the attack and tambra, have non standard note durations. etc....

So there are 50000 melodies and thousads of ways of playing them

Parody is only parody when...

[yerricde]

but is there not a certain degree of freedown allowable in reference parodies?

Under United States copyright law as interpreted by the courts, parody is only parody when the parody ridicules the original work itself. That's why The Wind Done Gone is legal but The Cat Not in the Hat isn't.

Re:Parody is only parody when...

[phorm]

Just to clarify, since I'm Canadian and not 100% up on US law. The "Wind Done Gone" is parody because it closely follows the concept of the original item, but with an alternative point/plot? The second one isn't parody because it only uses slight references to the original material but an entirely alternate point (attention grabbing)?

Seems alright to me, sometimes I wonder how Weird Al and others get away with some of their works, unless they have contracts/agreements with the original artists?

Somebody may have tried to parody slashdot with "news for jocks", but too many of them couldn't read - phorm

Re:Parody is only parody when...

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Yeh, which will eventually put editorial cartoonists out of business.

Someday, I wish to have my own pet judge. But they cost almost as much as spider monkeys, and aren't as clever. Maybe I'll get a monkey instead.

Re:Parody is only parody when...

[ealar dlanvuli]

Why are you on my foes list?

When I saw your name troll came to mind, but your posts seem reasonable?

Perhaps I should remove you?

Re:Parody is only parody when...

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

We got into a pissing match that had to be one of the longest running threads in slashdot history. At least I think it was you. I have strong opinions.

On a related note, I just learned that pet monkeys can be trained to throw feces at neighbors you don't like. This probably means they're more closely related to corporate lawyers than trial judges.

PS I have been known to troll.

Re:Parody is only parody when...

[ealar dlanvuli]

omg I remember that

I have no clue what it was about lol

removing you

misleading

[RatFink100]

Your post is misleading.

There are less than 50,000 4-note melodies. 4 notes being all it took in one particular court case.

However that only means that there are 50,000 unique melodies in a legal sense.

In an artistic sense there are millions.

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? :)

--

Re:misleading

[YaiEf]

Well, there may be less than 50,000 4-note melodies - but then again those 4 notes can be played in a trillion different ways. Even if the notes are played using the same instrument, a piano for example, those 4 notes would could still be worlds apart by changing the duration of each note, how much pressure applied, using the pedal, sharp or soft and probably more I can't think of. Using a piano I could easily play those 4 notes so you would probably not even recognize the melody - then moving on to a guitar I could do the same - then moving on to ... So talking about limiting the number of unique melodies to 50,000 is nonsense - change the rhytm a bit and it would pass through any court.

Re:misleading

[dallen]

You forgot to mention the author and title of where this came from. The story "Meloncholy Elephants" is printed in "By Any Name" by Spider Robinson. I recommend reading it, it's the best story in that collection.

And it is horribly apropos that this oversight was part of an article about resampling and not crediting the original creator.

Depends on the "it"

[yerricde]

it matches the signal from the music at certain points

Clarification: Gracenote's CDDB 2 may do this. CDDB 1 (used by FreeDB) was based solely on track lengths.

Let Aphex Twin show you how

[yerricde]

When you the MP3 of the song in a few filters, it gives the DeCSS source code.

I have done this. Along the lines of what Aphex Twin used to hide his face, I wrote a program that converted a .bmp of the efdtt source code (efdtt is a small DeCSS program, available at the Gallery of CSS Descramblers) into a waveform (using an inverse fourier transform of sorts) and mixed it on top of some song.

Re:How can you MAKE illegal music

[Niadh]

Actual I was thinking more of Britney Spears singing:

"s''$/=\2048;
while(){G=29;
R=142;
if((@a=unq T="C*",_)[20]&48){D=89;
_=unqb24,qT,@b=map{ordqB8 ,unqb8,qT,_^$a[--D]}@INC;
s/...$/1$&/;
Q=unqV,qb25,_;
H=73;
O=$b[4]>8^( P=(E=255)&(Q>>12^Q>>4^Q/8^Q))>8^(E&(F=( S=O>>14&7^O)^S*8^S>=8)+=P+(~F&E))for@a[128..$#a]}p rint+qT,@a}';
s/[D-HO-U_]/\$$&/g;
s/q/pack+/g;
eval"

catchy beat eh?

Weird Al signs contracts

[yerricde]

sometimes I wonder how Weird Al and others get away with some of their works, unless they have contracts/agreements with the original artists?

Al Yankovic makes a point of signing such contracts with the original songwriters. He doesn't have to pay the original performers because he typically doesn't sample; he covers (re-performs) the songs. For example, that's why the guitar at the beginning of "She Drives Like Crazy" sounds so much different from the one at the beginning of "She Drives Me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals.

Not Gracenote...

[SmittyTheBold]

If you read the article it says Marsh didn't believe the database possible ..."until I read a story in J@pan Inc Magazine (June 26) about a company called Gracenote, which specializes in "music recognition service," the software that lets your CD player tell you which artist and track are currently playing."

As many of you know, Gracenote offers the CDDB service. It does not do any fancy music waveform checking. It checks song lengths and a few other points of data off a CD. It is only useful for CDs. CDDB, though it is handy for getting CD info, contains user-entered data, and often has duplicate entries. Using it for such a system as the author described would be a bad idea. At this point, the chances of a certain CD "matching" another in CDDB's eyes is higher than you might think. Sometimes, I'll put in a disc and have three or four separate albums come up.

Re:Not Gracenote...

[Art_Vandelai]

Is that the same software plugged into WMP that told me my Warcraft III game was a Corrs album?

Re:Not Gracenote...

[SmittyTheBold]

Actually, I believe the MS software uses another (similar) system, and I've noticed it is much less accurate than Gracenote's system, CDDB. Still CDDB is not perfect, and frequently cannot tell you exactly what a CD is without user intervention.

Similarity is the key

[yerricde]

So there are 50000 melodies and thousads of ways of playing them

The courts aren't looking for "identical". They'll easily overlook the "thousads[sic] of ways of playing them" when applying the legal standard of "substantial similarity." My figure of 50,000 melodies was a statistical attempt to capture what it takes for two melodies to be "substantially similar."

Re:Yah sure

[Com2Kid]

Because that would require learning music, writing and composing songs, playing an instrument, and maybe even developing a talent. Not a very efficient process, time-wise...


Can I get an Amen out here? Come on now, you all know this is true, most modern musicians can't sing, can't write lyrics, and if you go to rappers, cannot even play an instrument. (at all, not that a rocker pounding on a guitar plugged into an insanely overpowered amp is anything resembling playing)

There is a reason that traditionally the entire composing VS playing this is separate.

Oh yah, and, to boot, I might add that real musicians STUDY for a longer period of TIME then many of the pop so called "artists" have even been ALIVE.

That right there should tell people something about the quality of the "music" that they are getting. . . .

A significant part of rap music is exactly this.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

(Not to say that what I'm about to describe is what the referenced "illegal music" songs actually are. But this got me thinking.)

Jay-zus, people, can't you see that sampling without permission, and then selling the copies, is illegal for a reason?

Hmm... Resampling bits of another record and playing them at another speed. Using them as notes on a synthesizer keyboard, short riffs, or wildly off-speed as percussion elements.

How is that different from what rap music does? Sliding somebody else's record around on the turntable, playing sampled notes on a drum box, ...

Don't the major labels record rap music and sell it at a profit without giving a cent to the group that recorded the disk that's "weep-weep"ing in the foreground?

How many notes do you have to copy before it stops being fair use and starts being plagarism?

Is it more if the notes are warped beyond human recognition?

Is it more - or less - if your song is a parody of the form of which the original is a member?

Is it plagarism if the individual notes of your composition are sampled from some other song rather than played anew in a studio?

Is a song a "copy" if a stock riff common to many songs of the form happens to be sampled from a commercial recording rather than played anew in a studio - and this can be identified by computer processing but NOT by a human ear (even a well-trained one)?

These are not rhetorical questions. Some of them have already been litigated.

"Intellectual Property" - whether patents, copyrights, or trademarks - is a creation of The State. When combined with a right to free expression it creates a multitude of slippery slopes.

NMPA != RIAA

[yerricde]

It's odd how the RIAA are stamping down on P2P but not on TAB and sheet music.

Published non-recorded copies of musical works are the NMPA's domain (national music publishers association), not the RIAA's (recording industry association of America). And yes, the NMPA does tag along when the RIAA sues P2P service operators.

Re:Yah sure

[Com2Kid]

So,

I should write my code in assembler and never use anyone elses code or libraries.

Yeh we need some more people doing that, I only have libjpeg but i want a statically compiled propritory image format in each application.

"We can see as far as we can today, because we stand of the shoulders of giants."

You are comparing apples to peanut brittle.

No, wait, make that apples to a Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich.

While both kick ass, I would not try to use the same preparation instructions for both of them.

See, music DOES borrow from others, heck many techniques and methodologies have been passed down from one great Grand Master to the next. Does that mean they are stolen? Heck no, it just means that an ideology was employed/i> in both songs, originated in one, and used once again in the second.

Code is the same way.

A timer function may be used in Application A to count down how much time the player has left until their simulated city goes down the toilet from a nuclear meltdown, and then used again in Application B to set off an alarm at a scheduled time of day every day and shows the User how much time they have left until that particular alarm is triggered.

Though I am just using a Timer as an example, obviously a highly simplified example of a function, though a library to save JPEGs or such is the same way. Be it saving screen shots from a game with hard coded settings plugged in there automatically, or all the variables left open to the user to play around with when saving files from their image editing application.

Same library, two completely separate programs.

But now to jump back to the first example, if somebody just DIRECTLY ripped off the timer + font and used the same alarm sound as the game had and popped up a "Your city is now a slag heap" message, well;

I would not call that a very useful Alarm program, though I would call it one hell of a rip off.

actually..

[gl4ss]

..if it was impossible to trade mp3's(or .ogg or such), i'd be listening to .mods, .xm's , sids, and maybe midi's. i listened mostly to those (+radio) before mp3's.. great amounts of music available and cost was only downloading from some bbs, and those included some really good songs too.

streaming nectarine now..

Good uses for a 'waveform database'

[beebware]

I know in the UK there is a service called Shazam which you call up with your mobile phone, point your phone at a 'music source' for around 15 seconds and then you get a text message/SMS back around 30 seconds later showing a) the artist name (handy for 'cover versions) and b) the track name. It also has the facility (if you register) to 'store' your requests on its website and give appropriate links to online music stores.
It seems to work quite alright as well, I tested it by playing 2 tracks at once out my speakers - it correctly identified one of them (I thought it'll fail complete), I've tried it via the radio on a bus - again success, admiteddly it failed in a very crowded and noisy nightclub - but it's still damn good (and resonable cheap) for identifying music.
The claim that they can recognise 1.5million different tracks from just a 15 second second sample - I don't know how they do it though, but I know *I'm* impressed by the technology!

Re:Good uses for a 'waveform database'

[BenHmm]

It's true - Shazam is really quite impressive. It's never failed on me, and I've tried it with some *really* obscure stuff. Of course, the next thing to do is to screenscrape the shazam personal page (or forward on the SMS), and link that to a p2p network, so you can shazam something, and when you get home your machine has downloaded it.

If you're in the UK, dial 2580 on your mobile...

Re:Good uses for a 'waveform database'

[Pertti van Helden]

I used it, too, a number of times since it went live some time in August. It's amazing. You can actually buy CDs from the "tagged songs" (as they call it). What would be really neat is if I could not buy the entire CD, but just use the "tagged" songs to compile a custom CD. Might even be willing to pay for that.

real close but ....

[CresentCityRon]

The sounds you talk about (and people not liking) are because the listeners were TAUGHT to become familar with something else. So they are expecting a certain sound.

It is similar to world music. Sometimes it takes a bit of time to understand what is going on to enjoy.

Re:real close but ....

[garcia]

that's really irrelevant. The point is that Indie music sucks for most people and most people are not going to enjoy it and thus are not going to buy it.

People don't always want to take the time to appreciate things. They want instant everything.

Re:Four notes is an approx of "substantially simil

[orangesquid]

Goddammit, I used the notes C, D, E, and F again! Those `Happy Birthday' ladies (as well as everyone else) will probably sue me.

As a songwriter, I often wonder: How the F*** am I supposed to compare my songs to the other one-million songs out there to see if they are `substantially similar?' Hell, any three-chord song sounds `substantially similar' to any other three-chord song.

I hereby renounce my title as a creator. Everything I could ever make (as music, as art, as writing, as code) has already been done and been copyrighted and/or patented. I will now slave away in a factory. Thank you for your time.

No, this is not a troll. This is simply a scared U.S. citizen. :-( *

*=Registered trademark of despair.com

Cross-licensing

[yerricde]

Don't the major labels record rap music and sell it at a profit

Yes.

without giving a cent

Cross-licensing agreements exist among the major record labels. These are analogous to what happens in other industries, where the big players pool their patents to keep newcomers out.

How many notes do you have to copy before it stops being fair use and starts being plagarism?

In legal theory, you infringe copyright when you copy enough to create a "substantial similarity." In practice, that's about four notes.

Is it plagarism if the individual notes of your composition are sampled from some other song rather than played anew in a studio?

They are "played anew" on a digital audio workstation, and they still infringe the songwriter's copyright.

Is a song a "copy" if a stock riff common to many songs of the form happens to be sampled from a commercial recording rather than played anew in a studio - and this can be identified by computer processing but NOT by a human ear (even a well-trained one)?

That's why the developers of the first PC clone BIOS made sure to employ and document clean room methods when writing a binary-compatible replacement for the IBM PC BIOS.

These are not rhetorical questions. Some of them have already been litigated.

Links would have been useful.

Fundamental dishonesty!

[jocks]

I'm sorry guys, but anyone who thinks that the solution to the scourge of intellectual property is to simply steal it, is either an idealist at best or simply a fool at worst.

The solution to the problem is to stop buying the product in the first place, if the album is good you will buy it, if it is bad you will not. Get rid of your illegal MP3s and OGGs and simply have music that you own. Wanna listen to some new music? Pay for it, or learn to play it.

Stealing it weakens the argument for cheaper music and enforces the perception that p2p networks simply share music for which people have no license. Rather than providing people with a useful way to share files on a heterogenus network.

I don't like MS products and licensing so I don't use them. I hate when people tell me that they think MS Office is much better than StarOffice, when the copy they have is stolen. If it's that good pay for it. The same is true for all intellectual property, we all think it is theft, we all would like to live in a state of pure anarchy, but none of you seem to be able to get to that enlightened level because of your greed. Free your mind and free your wallet, don't pay, don't listen.

Re:Fundamental dishonesty!

[Jesus IS the Devil]

Fact is, not many people complained about the RIAA prior to Napster. It was only when they started cracking down on music pirates that suddenly there was this notion of music being crappy, record artists getting ripped off, the music labels being bastards, etc.

There's only one logical conclusion here. Pirates trying to justify their illegal bahavior. Kind of like the bank robber who gets caught and says, "but the banks are greedy and charge people up the *ss, so therefore it's ok to steal/rob from them".

Re:Fundamental dishonesty!

[drinkypoo]

The solution to the problem is to stop buying the product in the first place, if the album is good you will buy it, if it is bad you will not. Get rid of your illegal MP3s and OGGs and simply have music that you own. Wanna listen to some new music? Pay for it, or learn to play it.

In a word in which the sheeple have the numbers and thus rule, I will occasionally hear entertaining songs everywhere I fucking go. I feel that the fact that I am essentially forced to listen to these songs when I go out into the wide world because they are played on Clearchannel commercial radio stations which play what idiots want to hear somewhat entitles me to download it and listen to it all I want. They're actually paying people to play it for me, I'm not going to pay them for the privilege of being fed crap.

Note I say it's crap, you are probably saying 'then why listen to it'? Well, even an idiot can make a beautiful mistake. And some of this shit is awfully catchy :)

Destroyed a promising artform?

[ciole]

If you think a lawsuit destroyed hiphop, you're more than white, you're missing the point.

Re:Destroyed a promising artform?

[grumpygrodyguy]

If you think a lawsuit destroyed hiphop, you're more than white, you're missing the point.

The kind of gangsta-rap crap that makes you cringe when you hear it on the radio is not what I'm referring to at all.

You've heard of bands like Hanson, Britney Spears? Same thing here. It's another genre that 99% of the population was never exposed to because it was killed on the vine.

Re:Destroyed a promising artform?

[__aawsxp7741]

I'm sorry if I'm being terribly dense, but what exactly are you trying to say here? That Hanson make some kind of real pop while everybody thinks pop is what Britney Spears makes, in the way that there's some real hip-hop bands (could you name one or two?) and everybody associates hip-hop with gangsta-rap?

Confused...

Re:Destroyed a promising artform?

[grumpygrodyguy]

I'm sorry if I'm being terribly dense, but what exactly are you trying to say here? That Hanson make some kind of real pop while everybody thinks pop is what Britney Spears makes

Sorry if I was unclear. I meant to say that pop exists in almost every music genre, including Hip-Hop. "Artists" who bend over backwards for recording studios are what we end up hearing. If 9 out of every 10 musicians that get offered recording contracts have artistic integrity, it's likely you've never heard of them. The 1 out of 10 that gets through usually have no talent at all, but get played because they are willing to sign over thier lives to the recording studio.

in the way that there's some real hip-hop bands (could you name one or two?)

goto Kazaa and try these:

A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, DJ Shadow, Beastie Boys.

And yes, I'm arguing that we hear less and less of this kind of music because it's effectively being outlawed by the RIAA.

Re:Destroyed a promising artform?

[thesilicate]

Try these:

Pharcyde
The Jurassic Five
Sage Francis
Gangstarr
Prince Paul
Handsome Boy Modelling School
DJ Craze
The Spooks
Dead Prez
Aesop Rock
Del the Funky Homosapien

There are hundreds more.

Stephen Tyndall

Re:kazaa?

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Um, Kazaa sucks?

If nothing else though, the spyware should let lot's of spammers and con artists find you, if that's any consolation.

that's called a cover

[yerricde]

if it was impossible to trade mp3's(or .ogg or such), i'd be listening to .mods, .xm's , sids, and maybe midi's.

Turning a recording into a .ogg file and distributing it infringes both the songwriter's and the performer's copyright.

Turning a song into a module file (mod, s3m, xm, it, mid+sf2) won't draw any fire from RIAA labels but will still infringe the songwriter's copyright. You still need a license from BMI or Harry Fox, depending on the intended use.

Writing your own music is harder than it looks because it's nearly impossible to avoid "substantial similarity" to the millions of songs out there.

Re:that's called a cover

[gl4ss]

that's right, i was talking about original work by great composers like lizard king, purple motion and others(the real names escape me).

all i ever saw was just a handful of 'remix' modules that were derivatives from commercial pop. most(all) of the good stuff was original pieces of work.

www.scenemusic.net for streaming 'radio' of this said scene music. there's plenty good music of this variety to kick listening commercial stuff, and for heavy metal there's bands like machinae supremacy to fill free needs.

Economic reasoning not optional

[abulafia]

I think there are some basic misunderstandings in your post.

The most basic one if that economics, as a whole, does not talk about money. It talks about transfers of resources. Much of it talks about finite resources, which is why so much ill-informed debate goes on as we witness a previously finite resource become effectively infinite. Money (dollars, rubles, pesos, etc.) are extremely useful measures for talking about these things, but one must be careful to realize that they are simply proxies for understandings and agreements between people.

If I perform an action, and give the result to you, a transfer of value as occurred. If I give you a recording of your favorite artist, you are better off. I may be, because of implied agreements to get something in return. The artist is slightly better off in terms of being more well known, which may lead to you in some way benefiting them in the future. Some people think they are slightly worse off because we're engaging in a pattern of behaviour that does not involve a third party who by legal convention serves to broker such activites.

I think you can sort of work out the rest of my thoughts based on the premises above. In terms of sampling lots of things and "using it to make money", I wonder if you ever made a mix tape for someone. You probably did not get dollars from the person you gave it to, but you did at the very least expect to recieve value in some way or another (i.e., a mix tape in return, get laid, something).

-j

Re:Economic reasoning not optional

[singularity]

I started off my first post "Did you read the article?" I suppose I shall start off this post "Did you read my post?"

No where in my post do I attack giving away music. I say that the artist might not make money he/she might otherwise, but I never say that people should not do this, nor do I make any comment that could be taken this way.

I think you are too into the Slashdot mentality of defending music sharing (something I do not attack) and simply read my post as attacking that.

Did you read my post?

I say that what is not acceptable is MAKING MONEY off this.

When you share a mix tape, you are not making money off of the deal. Indeed, you are losing a (previously) blank tape.

Do you see the difference? You are attacking what you preceive as my attack on giving away music. In fact, I was attacking making money off of other people's music.

I liken this to someone with 16 CD-Rs burning copies of music and selling them for profit. This is not simply sharing the music, or increasing the awareness of the band. This is taking money that would otherwise go towards the original artists.

[Note that, like in my first post, I do not want to suggest that the artist mentioned in the article is not an artist. I see the difference between sampling music and wholesale CD-R burning. I simply believe that the people that made the music he sampled are entitled to their share, as well.]

Re:Economic reasoning not optional

[abulafia]

I think we're speaking in two entirely orthagonal directions, so I won't bother with being too verbose here. (as a matter of fact, someone looking over my shoulder as I wrote my post asked me why I bothered to even post the message to which you're responding.)

The point of what I posted, which I had hoped people would grasp, was simply that there is no difference between sharing music, sampling music, selling music, and selling sampled music, at least from an economic perspective. That was all I was saying. It was a very, very narrow statement of fact.

If you're morally opposed to one member of that class of activities, you should be opposed to all of them, if you want to be internally consistent in your moral judgement.

I did read your post, several times, which you might have noticed from the direct quote from it. I hate to say it, but I'm not sure you read mine, starting from the point where I start trying to explain how cash and labor over time are equivelant. Er, that would be the start of the message.

If you still don't get what I'm saying, fine. You can even have the last word. I would suggest taking an econ class in your spare time, though (not trying to be a jerk, really. Just a suggestion.).

-j, heading back to slashdot lurk mode, because I don't have the time to deal with the mess.

So that's why they do it..

[AKnightCowboy]

They can keep their wave table database much smaller if they keep all modern music sounding alike. Clever RIAA, very clever. In fact, the entire database covering the years 1992 to 2002 is comprised of 25 samples.

illegal art

[underwhelm]

Been done.

If you ask nicely, I'll give you a good URL from where you can download it.

See also: illegal art, valenti cracks

Most Western music is built with the same material

[Knife_Edge]

But that does not make it unoriginal. Most Western music for the past 400 years has been created using the same essential building blocks. An infinite number of works can be made using this system. All the sounds, rythyms, etc may have existed before, and may have been used in another work before, but that does not mean entirely new combinations cannot be created. What you say is akin to dismissing a painting as unoriginal because the artist used the color red.

Re:Crappy rips

[Istealmymusic]

That's what you get for using Kazaa, or any peer-to-peer network for that matter. Learn how to use IRC, rip a couple unreleased/rare/bootleg CDs, join an MP3 ripping group, get an account on their HQ, and leech away high-quality rips.

You shouldn't complain about bad rips if you don't contribute back to the MP3 scene. Napster/Morpheus/Audiogalaxy/Kazaa/WinMX/Blubster/ whatevers_new_this_week is not the MP3 scene.

Number is wrong

[Knife_Edge]

I'm sorry, how did you come to the conclusion that there are less than 50000 4-note melodies? When I think about this, I consider that this number depends on the tonal system and the rythmic figuration. The latter condition guarantees that there are actually an infinite number of 4-note melodies, even if the former does not. Legally, I suppose the question would be the number of melodies that people could distinguish as being different. This number depends on the person and is probably higher than you think. People with absolute pitch consider the same melody or even the same motive played at two different pitch level to be quite different, for instance.

the title sounds like

[machine of god]

it's the music itself that's illegal. Ironic, too, because it's not all that out of the question.

Waveforms R Us

[Mulletproof]

Just curious, but doesn't MP3 signifigantly alter a waveform when it chucks the parts you normally can't hear? It'd be like fingerprinting with half the prints missing or otherwised changed around, I'd imagine. Oh, I'm sure they could make a close approximation, but the an approximation isn't nessisarily going to hold up in a court.

What do you mean "us"?

[esme]

Sometimes I just don't get the Slashdot crowd... Many of us

What do you mean "us"? Slashdot is not a person, it's not a coherent statement of belief. It's a bunch of people, with a bunch of different opinions, having a bunch of different conversations about it. I'm sure there are people from one end of the spectrum (hate RIAA/MPAA and don't give them a cent) to the other (don't see what the problem is and want to get the music any way they can).

That said, personally, I'm torn -- I don't like what the RIAA is doing, but still like some of their music. I mostly buy independent music these days. When I do want some RIAA stuff, I generally pirate it because it subverts their business model. They spend a lot of music up front to produce and promote music, and then I get it without giving them any money. I don't see any point in complaining about their attempts to stop this -- they're futile anyway.

-Esme

Re:What do you mean "us"?

[tmark]

I don't like what the RIAA is doing...When I do want some RIAA stuff, I generally pirate it...I get it without giving them any money

Jesus, I don't think a post more clearly outlines the anti-RIAA/pro-P2P hypocrisy so often brandished here than this post. You're pirating the stuff because you're cheap. I, for one, am not convinced by your self-righteous post that you're going to PAY as soon as the RIAA makes it easier for you to get it for free.

If you really want to change the RIAA's policy, try sending them money after you pirate something. Maybe if enough people who were supposedly willing to pay for alternatively-distribued content DID so, the RIAA could be convinced that the P2P world isn't mostly populated by mostly-thieves.

Re:What do you mean "us"?

[esme]

You're not listening to what I'm saying -- I'm not going to pay the RIAA when they change their policy. For one thing, they won't change it. For another thing, I don't want them to change, I want them to go out of business altogether. Giving them money -- any money -- prolongs their lifespans and makes it more likely they will successfully squash p2p.

Maybe I'm cheap. I'm perfectly willing to admit it's a factor.

But if you knew me at all, you'd also know that I've got very deeply held beliefs about intellectual property. I think charging for intellectual property is immoral -- whether its music, video, software, books, etc. Charging for media, charging for performance, charging for tech support, charging for a really nice theatre environment, etc. -- these are they way media producers should make their money.

As an academic, I am most interested in supporting organizations exist for the good of society, research, advancement of knowledge and the like. Those types of organizations tend to be OK with giving away IP because they know it helps everyone in the long run. I'm even happy with small record labels who exist mostly to propagate their artists' music (i.e., not exploit them). I don't mind paying $5 or $10 for a CD from places like this.

And as a realist, I do sometimes give money to the media companies. I try to avoid it, but when they make movies out of LotR, of course I went to see it. I had to talk my wife out of buying both DVD versions. This isn't hypocrisy -- it's the real world. No moral is absolute, and you have to weigh morality with expedience, long term ideals with short term realities. If you think you don't do this every day, you're lying to yourself.

-Esme

A boycott is impossible

[CoughDropAddict]

I listen to very little music from the last ten years. If you're talking about music older than that, the RIAA companies own every single significant recording.

You can't just go find free versions of Bach, Palestrina, Herbert Howells, Miles Davis, or Herbie Hancock. These are the genuises who made music evolve before our very eyes. Refusing to listen to them because the record companies are evil is to voluntarily stunt your own musical growth.

Re:A boycott is impossible

[stubear]

The songs are public domain and you can purchase the songsheets and perform the work yourself all you want. However, something like the recording of the Boston Symphony Orchestra performing Bach and Beethoven is copyrighted as it is the interpretation of the music, not the music itself. Same goes for any classical music CD available today. The performances are copyrighted but you are free to grab the songsheets and perform it yourself all you want.

Re:How can you MAKE illegal music

[Gogl]

You mean like this?

http://decss.zoy.org/decss-sung.mp3

Isn't this just like censorship?

[mangu]

The capability to automatically identify the music from the waveform may be one of RIAA's priorities. However, is it a good thing? If a software can tell which music it is, it can also tell if someone is saying "I love the Al Qaeda", so it will be promptly adopted for counter insurgency purposes as well. Given this, can the ability to detect "No, I didn't vote for Dubya" be far behind?

Re:Isn't this just like censorship?

[bp33]

Unlikely that the current software under development can detect speech, nor that it would even try to. Speech recognition technologies would be a better way to sample speech.

Anyway, aside from the telephone, it's not often that spoken expressions like you mentioned are recorded, encoded and sent to the world where the gummint can 'spy' on your words.

At least not yet. Why not start a conspiracy theory that the US Government is pushing for widespread adoption of broadband and wireless technologies so that more people will buy webcams and microphones to carry around with them everywhere they go, broadcasting everything they see, so that The Man can keep an eye on you?
(reminds me of an old SF novel, but I can't remember which one.)

Re:Isn't this just like censorship?

[mangu]

No, I think it's a conspiracy where the industrial/military complex pushes for legislation demanding that every equipment capable of recording and reproducing video and/or sound be equipped with a special chip, capable of detecting and intercepting "illegal content".

Did you tape the police arresting an opposition leader? Sorry, that content is not authorized by the Copright Central Authority, and will be deleted at once.

Re:Isn't this just like censorship?

[bp33]

> Did you tape the police arresting an opposition leader? Sorry, that content is not authorized by the Copright Central Authority, and will be deleted at once.

CNN needs to have an 'upload video' submission box on their web site. In fact, every news outlet should. If only it were easier to dump video directly from the Wal*Mart-bought camcorders into something that could be encoded/compressed and uploaded quickly. I don't think we're there yet.

Re:Isn't this just like censorship?

[mangu]

I have a Sony TRV320 camcorder and a Sony VAIO laptop. Uploading video is as simple as plugging a FireWire cable (bought separately) to the camcorder and running the software that came with the computer to get an AVI file. Then use some third-party software to encode into MPEG.

Re:Four notes is an approx of "substantially simil

[blincoln]

four notes is the best statistical approximation of "substantially similar" that I have ever found. Do you have a better one?

Well, that's the thing. The law is deliberately left vague to allow the courts room to interpret. There is no set figure because in one case, four notes might be more than enough to indicate a copyright violation, whereas in another someone might get away with using ten.

The best advice is just to use your best judgment when sampling, at least if you plan on selling the work. If you think using a sample makes your music sound noticeably similar to the original, the courts probably would too.

Actually, it's 177147 melodies

[mangu]

there are 12 intervals in an octave, assuming that sounds separated by one octave or multiple of are musically identical, that leaves us with eleven useable intervals, so the number of possible melodies is 3^11 == 177147.

But then, every copyrighted music out there may not be copyrightable, due to prior art. For each sequence of four notes, search all melodies whose copyright has expired. If you can find that sequence in an old melody, then that music is not copyrightable.

"Anti-Piracy" databases exist

[HillClimber]

"Anti-Piracy" database/recognizers are being marketed by more than one vendor. Here's Replicheck. I understand this technology will be applied to P2P networks too.

Re:Most Western music is built with the same mater

[_aa_]

I'm afraid you missed the entire point of my comment, and I agree with you fully.

Puff Daddy's real business is wholesale apparel

[Animats]

For Puff Daddy, the music thing is now a sideline. He's really an apparel designer, and a good one. See his new fall 2002 line, selling under the Sean John label. He's considered the most innovative designer in men's fashion right now. His stuff sells, too, unlike most other new ideas in menswear. It's not just runway fashion.

Re:Puff Daddy's real business is wholesale apparel

[Baconator]

Hmmm... it appears that clothes that fit are out of fashion!

What a shame

[bp33]

I'd love to hear the mix. Somebody must have caught the Solid Steel show and taped it.

Obviously somebody did, and put it on a CD for Dave Marsh and probably others. But for those of us not yet of the music legend that he is (said with all reverence), we have to snarf a bootleg copy from our local indie record shop or we search online.

Re:What a shame

[j-schoolgeek]

I like the Marsh article, but both of the Steinski CDs are available at http://www.sandboxautomatic.com/

They've got some RealAudio samples at http://sandbox.pair.com/abstract/nothingtofear.htm l

I sent the links to the Marsh email address listed on the article page... Not affiliated with Sandbox, and have never ordered anything from them.

Melancholy Elephants

[yerricde]

the number of possible melodies is 3^11 == 177147

Actually, 3 symbols in an alphabet of 11 is 11^3 not 3^11.

Even then, what about a repeated attack (think beginning of Beethoven's fifth symphony)? I originally had 11 there, but then I remembered repeated attacks and added the unison interval for a total of 12.

But then, every copyrighted music out there may not be copyrightable

That issue is explored in the anti-Bono short story "Melancholy Elephants" by Spider Robinson.

Re:Melancholy Elephants

[mangu]

Actually, 3 symbols in an alphabet of 11 is 11^3 not 3^11.

Doh. So, there are just 12^3 == 1728 melodies? I'm pretty sure there are more than 1728 classic melodies, I myself must have at least that many among my records. What do we need then, to kill copyright law forever? Create a table linking each one of those sequences to one old melody where it appears. Then, for any newer music, it'll be just a matter of consulting that table to demonstrate that that tune is not copyrightable.

Re:Melancholy Elephants

[Megahurts]

melodies must also take timing into account. That will add a LOT of variation. Further, the assumption that notes of separate octaves are musically identical is probably not valid. For example, consider the opening of Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze.

Substantial similarity

[yerricde]

Legally, I suppose the question would be the number of melodies that people could distinguish as being different.

Watch it. Under United States copyright case law, the standard is "substantial similarity" not an exact match.

People with absolute pitch consider the same melody or even the same motive played at two different pitch level to be quite different, for instance.

Different but still substantially similar.

Changing the rhythm a bit won't help

[yerricde]

changing the duration of each note

Won't help much. The 46,656 figure already accounts for basic rhythm by allowing a note to be short, medium, or long. Do you think any finer gradations would make the melody no longer "substantially similar" to the original melody? And even if you do change the rhythm enough to create a different melody, now you're infringing on somebody else's copyright.

how much pressure applied, using the pedal, sharp or soft and probably more I can't think of.

All of which would be considered inconsequential, resulting in a melody that's still "substantially similar" and still infringing.

Re:Changing the rhythm a bit won't help

[YaiEf]

Alright - you win =) That's really, really sick ... which was what I thought before. Just hoped (naive me) that reality was more reasonable than that ... However, shouldn't "prior art" then be able to be argued in this case? With the millions of melodies composed more than 200 years ago (or how long until the copyright expires) - they should easily account for most of the 46,656 different melodies?

Re:Four notes is an approx of "substantially simil

[hobbesmaster]

If I write a C major chord into a piece of music do I suddenly owe somebody money? Its four notes (C, E, G, C) after all. This can't possibly be true. I mean; how many pieces of music have a scale built in? A trill? Chromatics? This would mean that everything in western music is a derivative work from somebody else and every artist and song writer owes somebody else money.

OK for sampling, but what about songwriting?

[yerricde]

The best advice is just to use your best judgment when sampling

That may work for sampling, where it's possible to completely avoid liability by not using a particular recording, but it won't work for songwriting, where even if there are more than a million possible melodies, the sheer number of existing songs means that you are still likely to infringe accidentally.

The standard for proving copying under U.S. case law includes two components: substantial similarity, which we've discussed, and access to the original work. The "He's So Fine"/"My Sweet Lord" case destroyed the "independent creation" defense: the fact that a song was played on the radio during the defendant's lifetime constitutes proof of access to the work.

Re:Yah sure

[bp33]

Are you sure you want to go down this line of reasoning? You are trying to use an objective measure to validate a subjective thing.

When one hears a song for the first time, most people don't suspend judgement until they can research how much studying the performer has done before they decide if they like the song or not.

[Do you not use a software package unless you know it was coded in machine code with object-oriented design, because that's the only thing that meets your subjective qualifications for a good software engineer? Should they also make sure not to re-use any code that others have developed?]

All means of expression are valid. Some means might not appeal to you for many reasons. You may be looking for a specific kind of talent (e.g. years of study). So be it; that's your right, but it doesn't make the expression less valid.

It's art. Art is personal. Art makes you think. it makes you happy, and it makes you mad.

To the RIAA it's also product. Product is commercial. Product makes you money.

Complain about the commercial quality of the product but don't complain about the "talent" of the performer. They are different things.

Uh, try DJ Shadow

[wackybrit]

Lots of great (and ironically original) groups and DJs do lots of sampling, but rearrange the samples or cut them up into weird new unexpected beats.. and really redefine the sound.

Examples? DJ Shadow, Fat Boy Slim, Moby, Daft Punk.. there are a hundred examples.

Re:Uh, try DJ Shadow

[Com2Kid]

Uhh. . . .

Name a world class orchestra. Really, any one.

Now place them up against Daft Punk / Moby / Who ever.

Orchestra will kick ass.

Hell, a good opera house will kick ass.

For that matter a Master on a lone Grand Piano will kick ass.

Re:Uh, try DJ Shadow

[wackybrit]

Uh, you can't compare different genres and types of media like that.

If so.. let's compare Seinfeld to Nirvana.. which is better? Or, gee, Beethoven versus Piccasso.

Sure a live orchestra is great, but DJ-made recordings are just as good in their own way.

Re:Uh, try DJ Shadow

[Com2Kid]

Uh, you can't compare different genres and types of media like that.


Types of media?

Err.

Music.

Auditory.

Same type of media.

Sure a live orchestra is great, but DJ-made recordings are just as good in their own way.


Hey, watch, I will compare genres again.

rap sucks donkey balls, Classical music does not.

Tada! It is a miracle!

Bleh.

Using your reasoning I could fart into a tin can, record the sound, and call it its "own" genre of music and lay waste to all who challenged me.

Err, no.

Re:Uh, try DJ Shadow

[wackybrit]

rap sucks donkey balls, Classical music does not.

Well clearly you don't respect that different people like different things.

And comparing live music created with real instruments to electronic synthesized music is a whole different ballgame to comparing rap and classical music.

How the hell does one compare The Chemical Brothers to Beethoven anyway?

Whoever modded this guy down is a chump.

[Mulletproof]

Why? Because it's the exact same argument the very next guy uses and he's modded as an 'interesting'. Common, a little consistancy here? And he's absolutely right. Music is not open source as is the popular opinion. And late at night when Aunt Betty is asleep and i'm honest with myself, I have this tiny little fear: That the pirates- yes, you and I -Really are destroying the music industry. Oh, sure, the Labels are doing their part, but what is the long term effect this all has besides this RIAA crap? Well, I've thought of some...

Pirating really is like welfare. I can see people becoming so use to free music that it'll poison the industry. Joe has a few hit songs, but like most people, doesn't have the cash or the distibution infrastructure to get visibility. (and no, the internet is barely a viable option at this point) Unfortunately, neither do the labels anymore because all it takes is a dozen people to hit the net with any P2P program, and they're ass outta luck with near zero chance of defraying the cost. What happens? Joe is either really, really, really dedicated or he says I have a wife and kids to feed and drops the music gig. Now picture that on a large scale.

Now I'm not saying that this will happen 100% or the industry eventially won't eventially find other ways to make money off hits, but it doesn't take a huge leap of the imagination to a see a music recession on the rise because neither side will back down. And before I get any high and mighty replies about the evil empires raping us at the counter, I ask you this: What do you do if a department store gives you shitty service? Overprices their product? Oh, naturally you steal it off the shelf, right? Contrary to popular belief, you can change the industries behavior without resorting to THEFT... It just takes a lot of hard work and we're all lazy bastards.

Re:Whoever modded this guy down is a chump.

[flynn23]

It's already poisoning the industry. All the marketing and development resources get applied to stuff that reaches the lowest common denominator of listener. Boy Bands. Brittney. Watered down Hip Hop. These are all products of the industry focusing on the best ROI they can generate with their funds. Why nurture and develop an artist that's going to take 10 years to truly develop (U2, REM) when you can just market the fuck out of some teeny bopper crap that will go multi-platinum immediately?

Think of the music industry as being the venture capital industry. They've only got a limited set of funds to work with. They're going to be attracted to artists that have proven to generate a return, regardless of the artistic intent, and they are going to ignore opportunities that, while innovative or avant garde, are simply not going to generate a large enough market to make the investment worthwhile.

If profits continue to elude the labels, and costs for marketing and distribution continue to rise, then obviously they are going to become more and more risk averse. As we all know, that tends to give us more of the same and far less creativity.

Re:Whoever modded this guy down is a chump.

[Frantactical Fruke]

There is an analogue to this: The art world.

For all intents and purposes there is no market whatsoever for paintings. Some ten thousand collectors make up the global buying public for modern art. Does that stop art production?

Nah. Even the smallest town in the world has one or two latter day Van Goghs churning out paintings for their closets, while working other jobs for a living.

If you look closely, you will notice that even today only one in a million bands makes significant money from music. And still every other basement has a band practising in it.

So the mass market dies. You get thousands of little Britney Spearses instead of one massive media monster. They sing at weddings, in pubs, and if you like them, you go to their web site, download their music and recommend the band to friends. Millions of musicians get to make some spare time cash. Only the dream of not having to work for a living, just churning out one CD each year, dies a deserved death. Who cares?

Re:Topical?

[RatFink100]

I said misleading, not offtopic.

Yeah, if you can afford representation

[yerricde]

However, shouldn't "prior art" then be able to be argued in this case?

You said "argued". It's true that copyright protects only the original portions of a work, but if you don't have much money on hand, you can't afford to hire somebody to argue anything. Those without sufficient income to afford legal representation must steer clear of performing any action that anybody else could conceivably think of as infringing or defamatory.

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.

Re:What's wrong with sampling?

[adolf]

Seriously, why should they be able to stop people?

If I buy some commercial software that happens to undisclosed GPL'd mplayer code, surely the authors of mplayer don't think they're missing out on their rights? I'm not even a 'potential' mplayer user, so they're not even losing a pretend. . .

You get my point, I hope.

Financially speaking, they -are- due royalties for the use (even in small part) of their work. Sometimes, these royalties can be quite affordably tiny, almost a token jesture. Other times they can be hideously enormous.

Or should Sigma Designs or whoever the latest GPL-violating proprietary software vendor be permitted to use bits and pieces of GPL'd mplayer code, on the basis that they didn't steal much, and that their customers aren't mplayer users anyway?

Copyright is copyright, and he who holds the rights makes the rules, with obvious exceptions for fair use. Some people write under GPL, others LGPL, while others pick the BSD or Artistic licenses.

Most copyrighted materials are licensed under a "you may make no use of this material except as specifically defined by the laws of Congress, and even then, we'll sue you if you try." But, such draconian terms don't change the scope of copyright protection, and of compensation for rightsholders.

Re:Most Western music is built with the same mater

[Misch]

Most Western music for the past 400 years has been created using the same essential building blocks.

Right. If you play them all backwards in a tape player, you get your wife back, you get your truck back, and you get your dog back. Granted, it wasn't nessecairly trucks back then, it might have been a mule team, or a wagon, or a ship, but yeah, pretty much the same.

btw...

[jothenull]

mp3s of Negativland's original "U2" single is available here. Top of the page. "The forbidden single"

Re:Maybe Queen Will Own Ice Ice Baby Now

[flynn23]

anyone else notice that the video for Under Pressure is filled with old news footage and movie footage whose copyrights had expired? Irony at its finest.

Re:amused befuddlement

[flynn23]

You're right. This is the right way to approach the problem. But it will never work. For centuries, artists have capitulated to this arrangement - that being 'selling' their creative output to someone else who finances the production, rather than the consumer of their production. This was instituted during the Rennaissance and hasn't really changed since. The reason why it hasn't changed is simple. A) It works. Artists get paid. Quality and consistency get rewarded over time. And there is a mature machine for the merchandising and marketing of that product. Surprisingly, the labels actually do a good job of A&R, career development, artist management, and marketing. It's in their best interest to do so. A deviation from this would definitely not be as effective, especially initially, as the current system. It's basically the devil you know versus the devil you don't. B) There's always going to be some chump that takes the money and runs. Look at the current state of music. Most of the 'artists' that are on the charts are there for the pure purpose that it's a rewarding career and nothing more. Learn to produce music that sells and you'll get rich. It's that simple. Having something to say is purely a byproduct of that experience, not the main driver. So why buck the trend for artistic integrity or changing the paradigm? There's no incentive when you're making millions of dollars for going along with the program.

If you want to hear the Negativland recording

[quintessent]

http://www.negativland.com/audio.html

Re:Yah sure

[Com2Kid]

Two different things? Says who? You?

The RIAA buys cheap young performers because they are, err, cheap, young, and marketable. Quite frankly talent matters little. Hell even heavy metal enthuaists will admit that most of their favorite band singer's cannot actualy sing worth a crud.

Oh, and please, stop comparing programming techniques to musicial performances. The analogy does not work.

One can tell if a musical performer sucks or not, musical performances tend to be Analog someplace or another along the line. (well except for some Techno but. . . . :-P ), where as software either works, works like shit, works but is slow as shit, or just does not work.

Really after one of those criteria are met, I don't give a shit about HOW the software was programmed, how it WORKS is pretty much enough for me.

But then heya, if some person studied a piece of music for 17 years, went to play it, and sucked, I'd say they sucked, regardless of how long they studied it. :-D

What if...

[espresso_now]

It's wrong?

Re:Yah sure

[oliverthered]

Umm... I don't think you understood...
If I write some music I'll probably include some melodies or variants of melodies that I've heard before, without even realising it. I am coading in C++ not assembler, I'm using a standard notation not my own one. I may sample someone elses music because I think it's good, and easier to sample than reproduce.

All of this is borrowed and of-couse it's not stolen because to steal is to permently deprive someone of something.

Well this could be the end of..

[saqmaster]

.. the white label industry in the UK..

This is how it works. There aren't that many record pressing plants in the UK. 99% of them require copyright approval before they will scribe their ID onto the trailer on a piece of vinyl. If this database get's used, i'd say 75% of material that gets submitted for approval will get refused now, compared to maybe 15-20% that gets rejected nowadays.

In your typical UK record shop, 50-60% of vinyl's hanging on the wall are white labels made by new up-and-coming producers (bedroom dj's usually).. They whack a tune together, do an old remix, and knock it out. They never sell more than 500 copies. I know this, from experience. Even some of the larger (self) labels don't sell more than 1,000 presses. Why do they get so shitty about this? It costs approx £500 to manufacture 500 vinyls, single-sided, white label, including mastering/metalwork costs. They sell them for £3 sale-or-return to record shops. Wow, if they sell all 500, they may earn themselves a grand. Is that really worth all this copyright shit? Any decent record label (that would be capable of selling large quantities) would never let bad material go out the door anyway, so it shouldn't matter.

This is just another sign of how petty the industry is going, like internet broadcasting. If all pressing plants start doing this, the underground music scene will suffer and only 'commercial' music on large labels will continue to exist.

Pac-Man Fever

[BigBong]

OMG I would have never seen this comment coming. Pac-Man Fever, whoa, I haven't thought of that song since it was popular in the early 80's. What's worse is that just remembered that I still have that song on vinyl somewhere. That one was better left to forgotten history man.

Dude, that is the bigger picture

[serutan]

If people stop buying big-label music and buy unknown bands, the big labels will go out of business. But it takes effort to break our advertising-induced buying habits. Most people would rather rationalize their own laziness.

Well said

[serutan]

If more people would put their money and effort where their mouths are and take the time to look for non-label bands, they would find bands they like just as much as the ones that have been spoon-fed to them. There is a ton of excellent music freely available from the bands themselves, which the labels have absolutely no control over and can't touch you for downloading. Finding it on doesn't even take that much more effort than bitching on /.