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

It was not a sample.

[eples]

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

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

This is a rare case.

[techstar25]

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

Re:Samples

[phat_joe23]

Fair Use IS law.

Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107 /joe

Re:Not 'sampled', 'replayed'

[dr.badass]

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

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

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