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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.
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.
Also has a story on this. The kicker is it all rhymes!
-EB
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
The most popular "legal" music download service is now taking heat for illegal use of music.
The ad agency bought the song from iTunes for $1 and assumed they could use them.
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.
Even so, the sampling could use more cow bell.
I
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.
I was always under the impression that copyright happens at the time of content creation. Therefore, the song would have been "legally copyrighted" when the lyrics were conceived.
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.
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
Anyone who creates a work of literature, if it be lyrics, a book, etc, has a copyright, but then if they choose they can become a registered copyright, which is a legal copyright, it holds up in court a lot better than just saying "hey I wrote that you fruity bastard!"
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!
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.
To paraphrase the saying:
Sometimes it's easier to pay for forgiveness than to ask permission.
KFG
Well, M and M are his initials...
-sam
I was just here, where did I go?
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.
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...
queen did sue vanilla ice.
van halen did sue tone loc.
the WCW/WWE did have to pay the estate of jimi hendrix for use of hendrix's music.
it took about 5 minutes on Google to confirm those 3. not sure about the rest though. i can't spend all day on google now, can i?
Slackware
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
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.
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.
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
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