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

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

Comments

Right back at ya

[Mooset]

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

Karma

[friedegg]

Dr. Dre boots users from Napster.

Illegal Samples

[Scoria]

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

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

[nagora]

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

I DO hope the Doctor is enjoying his own medicine.

TWW

Re:Not 'sampled', 'replayed'

[hondo77]

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

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