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Eminem Sues Apple for Sampling his Samples
EvanKai writes "To celebrate Grey Tuesday, Eminem sues Apple to show his support for hiphop and sampling. CBS MarketWatch is reporting
that 'Rapper Eminem's music publisher is suing Apple Computer Inc., claiming the company used one of the hip-hop superstar's songs in a television advertisement without permission. Eight Mile Style filed the copyright infringement suit late last week against Apple, Viacom Inc., its MTV subsidiary and the TBWA/Chiat/Day advertising agency.' While the ad in question no longer appears, several similar ads can be found here. I can't believe Chiat Day failed to clear the use of these songs with Pink, Mariah Carey, and The Who... or whatever major label actually owns the rights."
Let's go slaughter it... who cares if it would've produced more for us in the longrun.
Well, from the sound of Eminem's going rate ($10million plus) it might be cheaper to just use the songs and then pay a smaller settlement fee. Just maybe...
The guitars sound good, now give me about 10db more on the cow bell.
Eminem is sooooo worried about being taken seriously as a artist isn't he?
First Weird Al and now Apple... I hope no one ever buys that loser's albums ever again and he can go back to being poor white trash again.
Do artists care that they are getting free advertisement for their music? Artists used to pay radio stations to promote their music on the air. Now artists are demanding radio stations to pay THEM to play their music. I thought RIAA had something up their asses...
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
Also has a story on this. The kicker is it all rhymes!
-EB
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
If you RTFA then you'll find that Apple didn't "sample" the song at all. Jeez. Can we get some standards here? The entire "story" here is that hip hop artists sample and then one is complaining about sampling, except that he isn't...
John.
The most popular "legal" music download service is now taking heat for illegal use of music.
Do the artists have any say in any of this sort of thing? For instance, is it likely Eminem told his people to go after Apple or are his people going after Apple regardless if he likes it or not?
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
The ad agency bought the song from iTunes for $1 and assumed they could use them.
His label, 8 Mile Style, owned by him, arranged for him to be one of the first exclusive artist on the iTMS. Now the label is suing Apple for a song that wasn't legally copyrighted until long after that commercial was run on MTV. Its a ploy to get his name in the papers and keep it there. Ya know he bitches about people not leaving him alone and boycotting him.. then goes and does this over something so little.. ironic.
Is it just me, or is this not a big deal? To me this doesn't indicate that Eminem has any problem with other artists sampling his music, but with it being used in commercials without permission. I mean, come on, just because this is Apple and we all love iTunes and the iPod doesn't make it right. Many people view artists allowing their music to be used in commercials as "selling out", and in Eminem's case, I could see this being even more of an issue than normal.
Ah, the classic SCO strategy...
It's a good thing that eminem is suing Apple for the lost revenue. Maybe now he can buy that cute little Miata that he's had his eye on...
if what Eminem claimed is true, ie Apply used one of the hip- hop superstar's songs in a television advertisement without permission, then it's a legitimate action isn't it?
now we're asking why a super-rich like Eminem bothers to stop free advertising. however we must think of a bigger picture where lesser-known artists are not getting a fair share and have no where to go.
It was a 10 year old girl singing the song (acapella) for like 8 or 10 seconds. Hardly a sample or anything.
:(
However, laws are laws, as stupid as some of them may be. Apple should have known better.
Thanks to that 10 year old girl, he won't be able to buy his own gold-plated shark tank this year.
Maybe Apple has some fine print in their iTunes Artist Agreement that states that if an artist places his song(s) on iTunes that apple will be able to use them in any manner that they wish. That would be smart if they did that.
The guitars sound good, now give me about 10db more on the cow bell.
What a hypocrite.
This Eminem (TM) guy's case is probably on shakey ground.
Well, duh, that's probably why they didn't hire him to endorse it, and instead paid someone else to sing a portion of the song indicating the kind of things that someone might expect to find on iTunes Music Store. Apple probably doesn't give a damn if Eminem endorses the service or not; they just want to inform prospective customers about what kind of music is available on it, not of Eminem's paid opinion of the service.The song was rapped by a 10-year old in a commercial. If it was hummed, would it count? This is the state of the music industry today, isn't it? An artist tries to get everybody singing their song and then sues anybody singing their song. Maybe the RIAA and SCO are not so different.
Stay tuned for new sig...
I'm sueing Apple for using my silhouette!
Eminem, or M&M as you call it, comes from the fact that his real name is Marshall Mathers - hence the M and M.
Slim Shady...well that's just pure egotism.
Why didn't Van Halen sue Tone Loc? (U2 can sue him too, actually...)
Why hasn't James Brown sued any of the rap acts that have sampled his stuff? (and many, many, many hip hop songs have ripped off his stuff)
Why didn't the Jimi Hendrix estate sue the now defunct WCW (since I don't think Time Warner owns the Hendrix copyrights)? The nWo theme was nothing but a mishmash of Jimi Hendrix riffs, after all..
Did Sir Mix-A-Lot pay royalties to Black Sabbath for his rip-off of 'Iron Man'?
Where would hip hop be without ripping off other artists? At least if credit was given the way the classical composers did it (saying, hey, this melody is a derivative of "___" by "___"), I think it would be less of a big deal.
Now, Apple should have licensed the use of these songs - but isn't it just a bit hypocritical of Eminem to sue apple when the biggest rip-offs of music has been several hip-hop artists?
Someone who's more familiar with Eminem's music can answer this - but who has Eminem ripped off?
Apple needed permission from the publisher - not the label who released the album.
In case you don't know - the publisher is whomever owns the copyright to the music and the words. The label owns the sound copyright. Two different things
Since the commercial (I haven't seen it) re-recorded the song the sound copyright holder doesn't need to be involved, but they needed a license from the publisher (a sync license) to broadcast the commercial.
No. They sample all the time, espescially in hip hop/rap, but they clear it with the copyright holders.
The Verve lost a huge lawsuit for "Bittersweet Symphony", the sample they used was from a Rolling Stones concert, for instance.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
One of the most notorious examples of sampling irony is the Negativland/Coca-Cola connection. The California-based band Negativland, copyright infringers of the highest reverence, "illegally" sampled a 1966 religious record and calls their version of the song "Michael Jackson". Samplist Fatboy Slim decides to sample Negativland's song, licenses the Negativland version of the religious sample from SST records, and also calls the song "Michael Jackson." After Fatboy's ensuing popularity, creative advertising executives decide to license Fatboy Slim's song for a Coca-Cola television commercial. Result: Coca-Cola unwittingly engages in copyright infringement. Negativland, whose calling is to debase advertising on all levels, find their music selling soft drinks. Fatboy Slim deposits a huge check in his bank account.
Negativland writes: "The track 'Michael Jackson' from this Fatboy Slim CD ['Better Living Through Chemistry' (Astralwerks) 1998] samples from the Negativland track 'Michael Jackson' from our 1987 release 'Escape From Noise' on SST Records.
"Stupidly, Fatboy Slim went to SST Records to get permission to use this sample. SST charged him $1000, which they are keeping all for themselves, of course. Besides the fact that Fatboy could have kept his $1000 and taken the sample from us without permission and we wouldn't have cared, the Negativland sample he used was itself appropriated by us without permission from a religious flexi-disc originally issued in 1966. [In fact, a Negativland member LITERALLY stole this record from the basement of a church in Concord CA.]
The article I sampled this from is here
Not that I personally care if megamillion dollar rapper X is sueing large company Y about permission of use.
But, aren't they allowed to use small snippets of music in order to *gasp* sell music? Example: the lousey 30 second clips found on most online CD stores... they don't clear each one of those do they?! Granted, I imagine before a commercial airs they usually sort this out, but I gotta think there was some legalese somewhere in whatever contract itunes has with 8mile publishing to allow for this type of use (otherwise sack the legal department)
*shrug*
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
I'm going to delete all 103 eminem tracks off my hard disk.
Take That Marshal!
Dr. Dre hires musicians to play baselines differently so that it will fit the legal requirements and he will not be required to pay royalties to the person he is "sampling".
If he copies a baseline verbatim (or actually samples their record), he pays them a royalty.
This isn't his decision, this is the decision made by the politicians that made the laws so restrictive. Paul's Boutique could never be made today, because the sampling is too extensive and it would be impossible for the record company to clear the record legally.
Advertisers must license every song that they use in their advertisements. Unlike "sampling," advertising has always worked this way, afaik. I see very little wrong with The Rolling Stones charging Billy G so many millions to use "Start Me Up."
So, go white boy go white boy go white boy go. Take those fat cats down. They knew they were supposed to get a license.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
One of the comments on spymac about this sums up the suit.
The song is 5:20 long. A ten year old kid sang 10 seconds of the song or 3.125% of the song. They used no actual music or clips of the song just a kid saying 3.125% of the words to the beat.
So it's a bit either way IMHO. has no music, tunes, singing or the original recording by eminem. I don't know about the legality of it, but I presume with such a minor amount of 'copying', apple's ad agency thought there was no need to get permission, but eminem obviously disagrees.
Not "freely". Publishing rights and royalties are always worked out ahead of time, even for the smallest of samples. Failure to do so results in disastrous lawsuits and LARGE royalties being paid out to the original artist/publisher. This happened when Peter Gunz & Lord Tariq sampled Steely Dan's Black Cow for their Deja Vu (Uptown Baby). Steely Dan was awarded six figures plus sole writing credit and rights to all future publishing, which pretty much meant that Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz made about $5 off the platinum single.
El riesgo vive siempre!
Nope, http://www.illegal-art.org/audio/grey.html .
Maybe they can reach a settlement like Mike Rowe did... hey one of those cool new iPods and 50 songs would be sweet
</sarcasm>
This is an interesting case. Anyone has the right to "cover" a copyrighted work, as long as the compulsory license is paid to the publisher (usually a per performance, or per mechanical fee).
However, in the case of endorsement, a specific license is indeed required (my wife - IANAL, but she is, ahem -- handles these from time to time). If the kid "singing" the song can be construed as an endorsement (probably), then Eminem deserves compensation.
Also, his likely fee ($10M) is definitely in the ballpark. You'd be amazed how much established artists make for these licenses. In fact, using an original song is usually so prohibitively expensive, that the licensor usually opts for a license to use a "cover" version only (much cheaper, but still a lot of money). That's why when you hear famous songs in commercials, they're often covers. FYI, in these cases, the language in these contracts usually requires a cover not to sound exactly like the original recording.
... and in related news, the Mars Candy Company is reportedly suing Eminem for trademark infringement to the "tune" of $10M.
copyright: the government gives the creator of a work a limited time monopoly on the work and derivative works.
It is a privilege and a reward for contributing to the realm of public knowlege (or culture, etc). It is not a property right. It is not unalienable. It is not permanent. The phrase "owns the rights" is idiotic on its face. A more proper term would be "holds the copyright".
These days corporations have turned copyright and patents upside down, and turned them into a system of legalized extortion and eternal ownership of works they did not even create.
The USPTO and current laws concerning copyrights and patents are corrupt and worthless, and need reform. Start by voting out of office a few corrupt senators who are well-paid lapdogs of the RIAA and MPAA. (Fritz Hollings et al)
Repeal the DMCA!
This is the same guy who, during a concert, gave a fan what was supposed to be a $45,000 (or some ridiculous figure) necklace to show he didn't care about money or material things. The only problem was the necklace was actually worthless crap.
Can't we get Mars candy to sue him for using Eminem? Everytime I hear him mentioned I suddenly want snackfood.
It has nothing to do with "samples". For those to lazy to look, they're just ads where various people are singing a capella, ostensibly along with the songs on their iPods.
They don't need to be cleared with the record label or artist, as this type of non-complete "reproduction" is legally allowable. It does not constitute an endorsement by the artist, and Eminem is a retard for even thinking that it does.
But in the US you can sue anyone for anything, so I guess we'll see how it turns out.
May I have your attention please?
..... i think ill stop before ruffle any more feathers.
May I have your attention please?
Will the really stupid intern who did not license the music from the original artist please stand up?
I repeat, will the really stupid intern who did not license the music from the original artist please stand up?
We're going to have a problem here..
Y'all act like you never seen a slashdotter before
Jaws all on the floor like Intel, like AMD just burst in the door
and started whoopin their ass worse than before
they first were
Please im not funny so make sure to mod me down to -3 offtopic, thanks again!
A Fatal OE Exception has occurred, Sig will now reboot.
Think he's going to rap about killing Steve Jobs?
Might have a new target besides his own mother.
Since the site is slashdotted, I thought I'd share what info I can...
: www.greytuesday.org/+grey+tuesday&hl=en&ie=UTF -8
It's basically a freedom of speech civil disobedience thing based on posting DJ Danger Mouse's Grey album for 24 hours on your website (on Feb 24, "Fat Tuesday"), because EMI is (supposedly) wrongly trying to censor this work, as it is a remix of Jay-Z's Black Album and the Beatles' White Album. They claim rights to the White Album. The organizers claim that it is a respectful and positive derivative work and should not be stifled.
Hardly readable google cache here: http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:OqlsV9RPt3YJ
As a digital DJ myself, I'm siding with EMI. I don't care if your work is respectful or not. I don't care if its positive or not. If I put hard work into making music, you have no right to profit off that work by remixing that music without seeking permission first.
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
Read the article at the top.... It mentions a 10-year-old kid singing "Lose Yourself", but I'm pretty sure the commercial had some kid standing around with his ipod and buds in his ears, rapping out (a bit faster than the actual song) "I'm the real shady youse the real shady please stand up please stand up" lyrics. It was a pretty disgusting image and a pathetic commercial. I'll take Microsoft's self-righteous commercials about helping kids reach their goals and striving farther over that Mac ad any day.
The song was not copyrighted unitl October 27, 2003. That was after the ads were pulled. Seems to me if they went to look up the copyright and found none they could use it until the copyright was filed. Basically the published did not own it until the copyright was filed so they are going to sue over a song they later owned... not which they owned when the ad was created.
Similarly, I was about to buy a Dell with Windows XP, then I saw the Microsoft commercials with people flying around after using Windows XP. It was then that I realized that you had to be on drugs to use Windows.
In the article, it says that it was a performance of the song done by someone else. This type of use does not need to be cleared, even for advertising. How many ads haven't you seen that have a well known song, but performed by someone else?
Eminem, however, is listed as part composer for this commercial and every time it is played, he will/should be reimbursed for his efforts. But I can tell you that those rates are nothing to write home about.
The only time you need clearance, or a license, to use a recording for a commercial is if you use, well, the actual recording. This could be the case, as the soundtrack for this performance may contain samples from the original, but there is no way to tell from the articles.
If those samples do not exist in the commercial, Mr. Slim is acting kinda Shady in this case...
dont be silly.
String got writing credits on Puff Daddy's cover of Every Breath You take. (The cover is called "I'll be missing you.") I can't believe how many people think Puff Daddy got away with something there. Shit, Stevie Wonder got writing credits on "Wild Wild West", another unoriginal hiphop cover that most people think was blatantly ripped off.
Not that re-recording a bassline can get you out of copyright litigation, since copyright infringement has nothing to do with the bits, and everything to do with the order and arrangement of notes, regardless of what instrument plays it, or what key you transpose it to.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Later Eminem was quoted as saying:
"Yo the little ***** shouldn't have been singin my m**** f****** song. Anybody else I'd ah f***** them up good if I wasn't such a punk ass loser."
Word.
Apple did not use Eminem's song in their commercial.
t ml.
Apple did not sample Eminem's song in their commercial.
Apple did show a 10-year-old girl COVERING the song, in Acapella.
Not only could this easily be definied as a cover, which requires no payment of royalties, but I would see it as a parody, which is covered under fair use.
I suggest you all review the Stanford Copyright & Fair Use Guide at http://fairuse.stanford.edu/web_resources/index.h
There is no case here, mark my words... Apple will win this suit, as Eminem has no case.
If there is no difference, then WHY is a distinction made? Marriage in the legal sense is a civil contract, no one is going to force a church to perform unions that it doesn't want to.
"Alternative" is a clever term often used by folks who don't want to sound critical, when in fact they are. Homosexuality appears to be biological. Discrimination on biological grounds is held to be illegal. Pretend that it is a choice (Many folks make this argument). Faith is also a choice, and also an illegal ground for discrimination.
What then is the valid argument? That it offends christian morals? Fine, let the church condem gays, but the State is not allowed to discriminate.
It comes down to a question of being treated as second class citizens. Of course gay folks don't want this. They don't particularly want approval, just acceptance of the right to LIVE AS THEY WILL.
For the record, I'm neither gay nor married. However, I am sick of gay people being bashed for their audacity to love who they will...
And yeah, wildly off topic. Hopefully the country does the right thing on this one, and grow up a bit.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
It wasn't a concert, it was an orchestral version of The Last Time and the sample was barely audible. Regardless, it didn't stop the Rolling Stones from successfully suing for 100% of the publishing rights...
Not only did they The Verve lose a lawsuit against The Stones, but also has successful legal challenges from Andrew Loog Oldham who owns the rights to all Pre 1968 Stones songs...
Worse than that, because the courts has ruled the due to the Sample, The Verve did not own the song, the Stones management then licensed the song to be used in adverts for Nike and Vauxhall...
Good point. I suggest you go watch "Bicentennial Man" with Robin Williams, and apply your argument to his quest for being acknowledged as "human". The idea is very similar. It's all about basic dignity. If you agree with Asimov's robot wanting acknowledgement that he's human, then you have to agree with homosexual couples wanting acknowledgement that they're no different than any other couples.
I'm on their side on this one, without being gay. It's all part of our great slow march towards true fair and equal treatment by the law.
Daniel
Carpe Diem
This is ridiculous. The ads contained a cover of the songs being sung, and like every other cover you hear, there's a compulsory license you can pay to get the right to perform someone else's music.
There was no sampling. Sampling is when I record what you say and play it back. Covering is when I just reperform it.
I agree with what some other people said -- Eminem suing Apple? I should download his audio on MP3 and show the whole world how he's got...oh crap, now I'm being sued.
--Dan
Why not take it up a notch?
Eg: Talented musicians are good enough to make up their own notes and tonalities, so they don't have to play from the western 12 note scale or use the same V-I cadence that is in 90% of all songs ever written.
Whether or not you play an instrument (I play 5) has little to do with your value as a composer of original music. The same people who decry sampling or rapping as unoriginal probably don't know that all the Greats (from Beethoven to the Grateful Dead) either had people go to concerts to transcribe ('sample' the sheet music) competitors' songs, or based their entire careers on covers (in the case of the Grateful Dead.)
It is always amusing to see people try and establish a relationship between the process used to create music, and the relative originality or perceived value of that music.
"Old man yells at systemd"
This provision is what lets Marilyn Manson cover "Tainted Love" and "Sweet Dreams," Type O Negative cover Cinnamon Girl, Tori Amos cover Smells Like Teen Spirit (and, well, every song on StrangeLittleGirl, plus Bad Company on her Under The Pink tour, plus...)
As an aside, it's kind of ironic that Eminem is suing for use of his work, when Dido had no idea he had sampled her work ("Stan") until she heard the CD. Luckily she was "blown away" and agreed to it - and later toured with him...
geek. lawyer.
Did you even RTFA? It's not a sample. It's a cover. One would also think from your post that his copyright holds less merit simply because you don't like rap music. Mod parent down, this isn't insightful, it's offtopic.
Two people who love each other who wish to spend the rest of their lives together.
Rather than a sacrament and a union of two people in order to rear children, what is it?
I am married (to a woman, and I am male), but have decided to not have children. Do you think I should not be allowed to say I am married?
Why not let polygamists get married, then?
Good question!
Summary of parent comment: RAP IS CRAP AND ISNT EVEN MUSIC, ONLY ROCK IS REAL MUSIC.
You don't have to like the genre, dude, but don't spew nonsense like claiming you can replicate a hip-hop hitmaker's skill with a simple Java program and arbitrary input. You can't.
Copyright was meant to provide an incentive to artists, not an unlimited monopoly to corporations.
For more good quotes go to Center for the Public DomainTest 1 2 3 4
Artists dont have to get permission from the copyright holder to release a cover. They DO have to pay them however. Check Lessig's site for related discussion
As others have pointed out, Apple's ad agency used an entirely new, original recording of a person singing the song in question.
Such use is covered by the compulsory license provisions of 17 USC 115, part of the copyright title of the United States Code:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/115.html
As long as Apple provided notice to the copyright holder (usually the publishing company that owns the publishing rights to the music and lyrics) and paid the compulsory license fee, they're in the clear. They do NOT need permission for this.
Furthermore, since Eminem's likeness and the sound of his voice were not used at all in the ad, it's highly unlikely that there's any merit at all to the assertion that he is somehow entitled to fees for an endorsement of their product.
Since the licenses described in 17 USC 115 are compulsory and the fees are explicitly spelled out, that chunk of statute probably precludes any further claims Eminem could make unless what they did in the commercial went beyond the scope of the compulsory license. Based on what I saw in those ads it almost certainly did not.
This one's probably dead on summary judgment. I'd be surprised if Apple even tried to settle this one for more than their projected legal costs to get to a ruling on that.
-- Mark
Except in this case, as I see it, Apple is profiting off of music in our culture. The reason it resonates with people is because it is part of our culture, not because it is owned by EMI.
Copyright was meant to forbid people from making copies of something for profit. With the understanding that a copy would reduce profits for the original inventor/creator. Apple is not selling a song here. They are selling an mp3 player and a music distribution service. This is not infringing on EMI's IP at all.
Let's get back to the original meaning of copyright.
From the statute:
A person may obtain a compulsory license only if his or her primary purpose in making phonorecords is to distribute them to the public for private use, including by means of a digital phonorecord delivery.
I think the meaning of this section is going to be the core of the dispute.
-- Mark
Which is of course more proof that IP law in the U.S. as it is now practiced is antithetical to the founding fathers reason for allowing it. How can it be promoting the arts and sciences when failing to get clearance for a single sample means that all revenue from an entire album is no longer the artists?!?! Sampling does NOT harm the origional artists just as small quotes and attributions in written works do not harm their origional authors. Heck you should be able to create a work made solely from samples so long as you list where the samples are from, that would be in line with how copyright works in the written world.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Interesting history:
Back when Apple Computers was first starting out, Apple Music sued them for copyright infringement; specifically, the use of name "Apple". The judge ruled that since Apple Computers had no involvement with the music industry, or the creation of sound in general, there was no possibility of confusion in the mind of the consumer, and the suit was dropped.
When sound was added to the Mac's capabilities, evidently one of the programmers thought that this would open Apple Computers to another lawsuit from Apple Music and thus taunted them by including in the sound list a sound titled "Sosumi".
So now you know... the rest of the story.
Eminem isn't that bad of a guy, on a personal level. My father owned the vehicles and paid the drivers that transported his stage equipment between concerts (along with other figures such as Britney Spears and dozens of other "artists" I don't remember). Eminem was quite nice to the drivers, unlike Ms. Spears who was a complete bitch to them. (Or maybe the drivers were just mad about her not paying attention to them and "escalated" the stories a bit...)
:)
We got a couple huge (and I mean *huge*) bags of M&Ms from him because he liked the drivers so much, and my sister has a signed N'Sync poster (or is it Backdoor Boys? One of the two.) that Eminem personally got for her.
Eminem is also the guy who tried to keep my father's business from going bankrupt after the company that held the contract with Eminem's producers/rhodeo/whatever and my father's company (who leased the trucks/drivers to the other company) decided to screw us over majorly (6 figure losses). Granted, my father's company still went bankrupt, but it lasted a bit longer thanks to Eminem.
Despite that, I still can't stand his music. ~,^
And that wraps up today's episode of Stuff Nobody Cares About.
They've been together 51 years, in circumstances which require way more dedication than a heterosexual union.
Apply that to your stereotype. Yes, gay couples tend to break off after a short time period. NEWS FLASH: So do straight couples.
There are 10 kinds of people: ones who understand ternary, ones who don't, and ones who think this joke is about binary
If your lifelong commitment to the person you love is questioned by the mere act of two other people wanting to enter into a similar lifelong commitment, I hope you get marriage counseling gift certificates on birthdays and major holidays.
The big deal about being able to get a marriage license are the rights and benefits afforded, including but not limited to: purchasing health care for your spouse through your employer, hospital visitation rights, automatic designation of beneficiary, and even little things like getting a family membership at the local gym versus paying for two individuals.
Up until today, I've gotten a hearty laugh seeing the word 'sacred' paired with marriage. Are we talking the same sacred marraige Britney Spears entered into and stuck with for a grueling 55 hours? Is one's first marriage as sacred as the second, third or fourth? And does a couple who decides not to have children, or are even biologically incapable less sacred? Care to say that to their face?
I am gay, but don't need anyone's stamp of approval to live my life. But I'll be damned to have any institution impose on me restrictions on who I can love.
Tupac took on Notorious B.I.G...
Jay-Z took on NAS...
Eminem takes on Apple computers, a skinny-bald-vegen-DJ, and a hand puppet.
Eminem is the greatest! Ive never seen an artist with so much talent! Sheer brilliance! Such mind boggling creativity! I LOVE HIM!
(sigh)
Im gonna go take a shower then kill myself.
He wrote it, did he not? That makes it his work, doesn't it?
You ever wonder why no one sings "Happy Birthday To You" on TV? That's right. It's a copyrighted work they would have to pay money to perform.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I saw an interview with Robert Plant on VH1 Classics a couple of months back, in it he stated that really there is only so many notes to go around, everyone copies someone at some point in their careers.
Musicians (and actors) as gazillionaires is a relatively new thing in our society, I think a lot of them are really losing it though. In the old days musicians were paid much like the rest of us, for doing a job, ie, playing music for an event or for a group.
Do I think Eminem deservers $10mil to compensate for some 10 year old girl blurting out his "creation"? Heck no, give the guy a couple of hundred bucks at most, but move on.
These folks would be more than happy to collect royalties off us all when we hum their tunes in the shower.
It's time we brought some of these "stars" back down to earth a little. It's a never ending cycle and it's the consumer who is burnt because of it, is any actor worth $20million for 3 or 4 months work on a movie? I don't think so myself, but because some suits in Hollywood think so we're now paying $10 a ticket at the movies, meanwhile these "stars" pump out garbage like Gigli.
And WTF is with Britney Spears? I saw some video of hers yesterday and she's selling nothing but sex appeal, her singing stinks and she has little talent, but I guess wriggling yer bum is worth millions in the US. How about getting her to put on a concert where she actually stands still and sings her songs rather than runs around lipsyncing everything.
It had to already be mentioned, but if not here it is. The Slim Shady LP sampled a song called Pigs Go Home and was sued by the current copyright owner, a 70 year old grandmother.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
A little girl in a commercial sang a small part of a song written by some overrated guy who does that rap stuff.
The singer is suing for some stupid amount.
He should lose because he's a dickhead.
He won't lose, however, because we have a legal system constructed by, for and of the dickheads.
I hope this helps. :-)
--- Ban humanity.
You may believe (as I do) that current copyright law is unethical, that is that it harms society as a whole. The correct way to fix immoral legal situations IS civil disobedience. However, the correct way to fix unethical legal situations is to change the law. One cannot enact sweeping ethical legal changes without changing the law. Therefore I believe that the correct action here is not to violate the law, but to ask the lawmakers to change it. FWIW, I have corresponded with all of my state senators and representatives on this matter and made my opinion known. Most of them were in agreement to some degree or another.
There's no way I'm going to accept that the definitions of immoral and unethical are anywhere near precise enough for the distinction you're making. The only examples I can think of that immoral would apply to that unethical would not would be religious sins--i.e., you could say "idolatry is immoral", but you certainly couldn't say "idolatry is unethical."
Now perhaps if you believe Utilitarianism is the only ethical system, your distinction would make sense. On the other hand, I happen to think current copyright law is immoral, because by default human communication should be unrestricted--any undue restriction thereof is tyranny, and any means necessary to overthrow or bypass (de facto law being my only concern) such restriction is justified. Few things are more offensive to me than telling a particular artistic work that it has no right to exist. The White Album, being rather aged and with half its performers dead, is ripe for civil disobedience.
There is also the issue of being unfair to creators while being fair to copyright holders--you can say "transferable" all you want, but if by making the right transferrable you have reduced the benefits to artists (highly probable), then transferability is wrong.
My point being, if I believe that pickpocketing should not be a crime, that doesn't give me the right to pick your pocket.
True, because rights come from neither beliefs nor laws. If you believed you had a right to pickpocket, surely you would also believe that everyone had a right to pickpocket, regardless of their beliefs on pickpocketing.
You failed to specify, using an instantly made up and barely decipherable acronym, whether:
1) You are a lawyer
2) You are not a lawyer
3) You intend to be a lawyer
4) You are married to a lawyer
5) You know a lawyer
6) You know how to spell lawyer
Without a disclaimer, I'm left to conclude that you MUST BE a lawyer (or, more likely, a high ranking judge) and as such I will be citing your Slashdot post in a case I currently have before the Federal appeals court.
If I lose, expect to be sued.
Eight Mile Style filed the copyright infringement suit ... At issue is an ad for Apple's iTunes pay-per-download music software, in which a 10-year-old sings Eminem's "Lose Yourself."
I agree. If a 10-year-old is singing the song, then it is a new performance (unless Eminem has a time machine.) To use Eminem's song for a new performance requires "mechanical rights", which are automatically granted for a set fee. Mechanical rights are applied for selling something that includes the copyright (but not perfomances) of an artist. I believe that should apply to advertising that does not include the artist's performance, but IANAL.
Most songs are handled by the The Harry Fox Agency (HFA). Eminem has 50 songs listed at Songfile.com, which is HFA's online license application for low volume use. The list does not include "Lose Yourself". If the song is not handled by HFA, then you must contact the publisher directly.
There is a lawsuit, so somebody believes they had the right to tell Apple they could not use lyrics in a commercial. But it is not about a "sample", because Apple did not use a "sample" of Eminem's performance.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
also from here this bit about the song and copyright law:
So for those arguing that a "cover" of the song can sung without obtaining any rights, I would have a say that a precedence has been set and it does not appear to be in favor of Apple and Chiat Day.
I like microcars
It wasnt actually the Stones who sued - it was Andrew Loog Oldham, their old manager.
The sample came from the Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra version of The Last Time - he also owns a lot of the early stones recordings.
"My parents were strict, but they never pitted me against livestock" - Doug Stanhope
It wasn't a concert, it was an orchestral version of The Last Time and the sample was barely audible.
Barely audible? It was practically the only thing in the song.
Here's how it works:
When the Mom-and-Pop band goes into the studio to record an album, they emerge with two related yet discrete products. A collection of songs (the notes, lyrics, chords, tempo, modulations, etc... essentially metric data that can be easily reverse-engineered) and a collection of recordings (the tape or disk, containing the actual bits or electromagnetic flux representing the specific performances of the metric data by musicians).
Look closely on any retail CD you own. The *songs* will be copyright-ed (copywritten?) by the author (as in, "Big Stanky Lovin'" copyright 1999 Herb Stank). Somewhere in the vicinity, there will also be a note that "the copyright in this original sound recording is owned by Universal Music Group". What this means is that Herb Stank may have written the song, but that Universal owns the master tapes of this recording. Usually somewhere in there is the standard disclaimer about "all rights reserved".
The rights that the record companies are reserving are the right to sell CD's; the right to control who performs the recording live; the right to make and sell sheet music of the recording; the right to sell these rights to an interested party. These are all forms of publishing, which is the only thing the record company cares about, because publishing is the only part of the music industry that actually makes money. That little blurb on the CD about "lyrics reprinted by permission"? It's not the songwriter's permission. It's Universal's. And if that blurb weren't on there, technically Universal could sue their own band (and believe me, that's an all too common occurance). And yes, they could decide to get their undies in a bundle and keep you from even printing your lyrics on your own CD. And yes, technically once you sign that dotted line, Universal could sue you for ever performing your own song live.
This might seem like a lot of rights for the record companies to have, considering they didn't write the song. This is why many musicians, independant and otherwise, form their own publishing companies. As long as Mom-and-Pop's-Publishing is the first to obtain the publishing rights to a song (and there's no reason they shouldn't be if the band isn't signed), the Mom and Pop band is in a much better position to negotiate with the record company to retain some of these rights, or to have them revert to Mom-and-Pop's-Publishing after a set period of time, then they would be if they just signed right up to Universal.
So, when rapper X sticks the CD from the Mom-and-Pop Band in his computer, fires up audiograbber and rips off a chunk of "Big Stanky Lovin", written by Herb Stank, performed by the Mom-and-Pop band, published by Mom-and-Pop's Publishing Inc., and (most importantly) OWNED by Universal, there can be four pipers to pay. But usually it's just the big one, since the big one has bought the publishing rights from the littler three. In fact, the most common scenario is that if Universal likes the Mom-and-Pop Band so much, they typically will buy Mom-and-Pop's Publishing as part of the deal. Which still leaves the artists pretty screwed, but at least they got more money.
On the other hand, if rapper X is smart and has his guitar playing friends reverse engineer the metric data contained within the digital (or analog) data of the sound recording, then you eliminate the record company being able to come after you for stealing their recording. OF course, they'll still come after you for stealing their song, but that's almost impossible to prove if you are clever enough...
Some legal protection does still exist for the fair use (although they don't call it that) of this metric data. There are certain legal requirements one must meet when attmpting to copyright a song (you can't copyright a two-note phrase). Etc...
b.echthros
They will never stop until somebody makes the
"Well, talented artists are good enough to make their own music, so they don't have to sample. Eminem couldn't play a musical instrument if Suge Knight was threatening his life..."
Comments like this rub artists like myself the wrong way. Let me paint you all a little picture of my world, maybe this will help in understanding why sampling is part of the industry.
I'm a 3D artist. When you work in 3D, there are a lot of subcategories that one can go into. You can do texturing, character animation and rigging, visual effects, matte painting, and a few others that aren't readily popping into mind. I specialize in modelling with a secondary skill in design. What I mean by that is my talent in other areas isn't so strong. Am I talented a talented? There are lots of people who would say yes. Can I do character animation? Nope, I haven't climbed those steps yet. Does that mean I'm not a 3D artist? No.
So what do I do if I'm commisioned to do a project that requires other areas? Simple, I either license other stuff, or I get another person involved. Right now, I'm working on an Ore facility designed to operate on the surface of an asteroid, it's for a game. I've designed the station, gotten that approved, and now I'm building it. The thing is, my client needs it rendered with a backdrop. He has a very specific goal in mind and I have to complete it. I have so much time to get it done in. One of the things I need to do is make a realistic terrain for it. Well, that's not really my area. For one thing, I need textures for it. (note: What I'm about to describe is like sampling.) Now, I can't go to an asteroid and take some photos that I own the copyright to. So what do I do? Well, Nasa is pretty darn cool. They've got a lot of photos of the surface of the moon and on Mars that I can put together in Photoshop to create a new environment. This involves taking small pieces of their images and putting them together into something new. Nasa's agreement is pretty open about that. It says I can use their images provided I say "Courtesy of Nasa" in the credits. In addition to those images, I have a royatly free photo CD I purchased that more or less says "use it as you like, you've paid for it." So here I am, 'sampling' other artists work to meet this goal. I'm doing this LEGITIMATELY and ethically. (In other words, they'd be happy for this use.)
Now, there are exceptional artists out there who'd do it all. They'd probably design it, build it, hand-paint the textures, and do a lot of other things that somebody with years (decades even) of experience under their belts. (Craig Mullins, for example.) However, I'm not there yet. Most artists aren't. That's not because they suck, it's because it takes a long time to get there.
So let's get to Eminem here. So he can't play an instrument. So? That's not his talent. His talent is the lyrics he puts together. I can't say I'm a fan of his, but I have listened to his music, and he's definitely a guy with a style about him, and is most definitely an artist. Has he sampled music? Yep. There's a song called Stan that uses some chunks of some of Dido's work in it. If he were a 'talented artist', the way the parent poster is describing them, would this be a bad move? No for a couple of reasons: 1.) It fits the song. You have to hear it to understand, but it was an appropriate choice. 2.) He licensed use of that song. The result? A better piece. Could he have pursued his own? Eh maybe. Would that be automatically better? Automatically? No. It really depends on what your goal is.
Sampling is not an evil. It can be done wrong. You can grab a riff from a song and not get the permission to do it, that'd be awful. Artists are very protective of their work. I could grab a texture from somewhere and not acquire for it, that'd be equally wrong. Somebody could download somebody else's work and put their name on it
"Derp de derp."
I'm not sure what kind of rap you listen to, but on mixtapes there is sampling going on right and left. Ever heard of a freestyle? Almost always someone else's instrumental with no such permission obtained.
Do you think that 50 Cent got Ja Rule's permission to mock Rule over the Clap Back beat? Well he didn't (because there's no way he would get permission for that).
You may not hear a lot of such songs because they never are released as albums under major labels. They're instead placed on mixtapes that are used for promotional use by the artists, not unlike Apple using samples in their ad(s). Of course, the original artist's lyrics are never used in this way.
I didn't see Apple's commercial, but if it was nothing more than the instrumental in the song, then I'd say Eminem has something of a double standard. There are a tons freestyles on the mixtapes from Shadyville that use instrumentals without permission.
True story.
Yeah, I agree with that assessment. If that's the grandparent's definition of "barely audible" then he needs a new hearing aid. The sample was the song, from the first note to the last. A few drums and a base on top of it didn't change a damn thing.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
That's a pretty vapid assumption. There are a lot of very adept musicians who sample, not the least of which being Peter Gabriel, Stewart Copeland (ex-Police), Vernon Reid (Living Colour, Yohimbe Bros), Marcus Miller (ex-Miles Davis), etc....Sampling can be and has been a great way to create new things from old bits.
But yes, Eminem does suck.
I think you'll find that the artist that you're referring to is called Sting, as in what bees do, rather than string, as in old frayed rope.
On the other hand, copyright fees earnt by cover versions, etc is money for old rope, as they say here in Britain.
(I'll save the "I'm afraid not"/"I'm a frayed knot" gag for another time.)
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Let me paint you all a little picture of my world, maybe this will help in understanding why sampling is part of the industry. I'm a 3D artist
Whoa, stop right there. Music is on an entirely different level from any other artistic work. Music is protected to the point of absurdity.
Think of that stupid Intel jingle you hear on TV. It's four damn notes, and yet there is a copyright attached to the order of the notes, there is a copyright attached to the performance of the notes, and there is a copyright attached to the recording of those notes. You don't need to know anything at all about music to come up with four notes that sound interesting together, and it's laughable to imagine that in the last million years those notes have never been performed in that order.
Can you imagine any four bits of data that would have so much protection in any other endeavour? The written word doesn't offer that much protection, computer programming doesn't offer that much protection, why does humming a few notes offer it?
I have quite a bit of respect for modelers and artists. The attention they recieve doesn't come close to the impact their work makes on a finished product. But the equivalent of these sampling cases to the modeller's world would be suing over 4 or 5 pixels in a texture. Can you imagine how fast that would be laughed out of court? The minimum bar for what constitutes a musical work is set far too low to shed a tear for the poor artists in these sorts of lawsuits.
is there a torrent file for the grey album? all of the mirrors seem to be overwhelmed...
This guy steals lyrics from other songs all the time. Quite frankly I'm amazed he gets away with it, but it disgusts me that he would have the gall to raise arms when somebody does the same to him.
First example that comes to mind is the very beginning of the song "Don't Understand" by Masta Ace.
You can be quite versatile with the western 12 semitone scale. The I, IV and V chords for any given key harmonize with every note in the scale, so you can harmonize any melody just using...
you got it... THREE CHORDS.
Using anything but those three is color and style. Which I am personally very fond of. But I can appreciate mastery of the form in using only I, IV and V or mostly that. Beethoven often used those primary chords, although never exclusively. The 5th Symphony is a good example of that. God, if Beethoven had only had a Rickenbacher and a Marshall Stack.... His style is clearly an early ancestor of Hard Rock.
I'm not a big fan of sampling tunes. Sounds, yes. Tunes, no. Learn from your colleagues, by all means, but don't rip em off. Make your art completely your own. And if you really must include someone's work, license it!
Um, I hate to make a nuisance of myself in this thread, but, as I'm sure you're aware, there are only, you know, like, TWELVE NOTES. So if you want to talk about originality in music, 12-tone western tonality is just a *bad* place to start. I'm sure if you're on slashdot in the first place you're intelligent enough to know that, given the constraints of a) twelve tones and b) the 3-minute pop song, the possibilities exhaust themselves pretty quickly.
To respond to the factual meat of your statement, Eminem can actually sing. He's not Luciano Pavarotti, but he can hold a tune. Controlling the frequency and amplitude of vocal chords is, fundamentally, no different then controlling the amplitude and frequency of an instrument (all those nasty jokes I made about vocalists while I was at music camp notwithstanding).
And what's more important than holding a tune, is that he can *write* a tune. Last I heard, he makes a good portion of his own beats these days, as well as a good portion of the beats on the 50-cent album. Programming music into a computer might not require the physical dexterity of playing an instrument, but it damn sure does require the mental dexterity or being able to actually compose a song (albeit a pop song). Something, I might add, that many people who can "actually play instruments" lack the ability to do. Say, for instance, Nickelback. The fact that they can play "real instruments" doesn't change the fact that they suck major donkey asshole.
Mozart and Beethoven (even though they could) didn't play instruments at performances of their works. They had hired hands play the parts they wrote. Eminem has machines and hired hands play the parts he wrote. The main difference being that you can tell a machine *exactly* what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. Whereas with humans performing your composition you always run the risk that they'll screw it up, or even worse, put their own spin or interpretation on it.
They will never stop until somebody makes the
That compulsory license fee is regarding lyrics/notation (copywrighted by the publisher), not the actualy sound recording itself (copyrighted by the record label).
Yes, anyone can record a song as long as they pay the standard $.08 fee per copy to the publisher. This is called a mechanical royalty.
We are talking about the lyrics/notation, not the actual recording of the lyrics/notation.
HOWEVER, to use the lyrics/notation in a broadcast type of setting or to sync it up to film/video requires negtioation as the standard rate does NOT apply in that case.
I know what I am talking about, my degree is in the recording industry:
http://www.MTSU.edu/~record/
Libertas in infinitum
The recording companies and the publishing companies are almost ALWAYS two seperate entities.
The right to sell sheet music of a particular song is held by the publisher, NOT THE RECORD LABEL! The record label has to pay the publisher in order to record the song (this is called a mechanical royalty).
In order to perform a song live the venue (or promoter) must have authorization from a performing rights orginization (SESAC, BMI, or ASCAP). This is usally a blanket license. The record label has NOTHING to do with this!
Also anything that is copyrightable (such as a song or work of art) is copyrighted the instant it is put onto a transferrable medium. It doesn't have to be registered with the US Copyright Office for it to be copyrighted. Registering it with the USCO does help incase there is ever a dispute they can say "it was registered on this date such and such etc"
My degree is in the recording industry. I know what I am talking about:
http://www.MTSU.edu/~record/
Libertas in infinitum
Mechanical rights apply to the creation and distribution of CDs.
Songwriters also enjoy an audiovisual synchronization right that they can grant to allow the placement of a song in timed relation to a visual image. Without that synch right Apple owes Slim Shady some bling bling.