Did Producer Timbaland Steal From the Demoscene?

gloom writes "In 2000 the Finnish demoscene musician Janne Suni (also known as 'Tempest') won the Oldskool Music Competition at the Assembly demoparty with his four-channel Amiga .MOD entitled 'Acid Jazzed Evening.' A Commodore 64 musician called 'grg' remade the song on the C64 (using the infamous SID soundchip); it is this that was stolen. The producer's name is Timbaland and he is one of the hottest names in American music these days. The track in question is called 'Do it' and it is featured on the Nelly Furtado album 'Loose' on the Geffen label. Getting nowhere with Geffen, the demoscene has now risen to the aid of Tempest, first by creating a stir at SomethingAwful (files downloadable from the forum), then at Digg.com, then on YouTube, with a video demonstrating the blatant ripoff. Being an online-posting musician myself — what rights do I have if this should ever happen to me, and what can be done to raise awareness about such things?"

Comments

Re:Piracy is okay if you are rich

[Goldberg's Pants]

There's a big difference between downloading a song, and ripping off someone elses work, passing it off as your own, and making money off it, which is what this fucker Timbaland has done. It's not piracy. Piracy is when you download Nelly Furtado's album.

Outright theft is when someones work is stolen and passed off as your own FOR PROFIT.

And it's also a great example of the disparity in the legal system. This guy has been completely ripped off, and basically can't afford to take it to court, because Geffen are richer than him.

One world, under a dollar, with justice for none except the corporations.

Slashdot, help me know what to think!?!!

[glamslam]

Do we support this behavior (DJ Danger Mouse) or do we not (the example above)???

Re:Slashdot, help me know what to think!?!!

[ChaosDiscord]

You left out option three: actually understand the issues involved and stop trying to play "gotcha."

DJ Dangermouse may reuse other people's work in his own creations, but he credits his sources.

If the above is to be believed, Timbaland reused someone else's creations, but didn't credit his source. That's low. Really low. If it's true, Timbaland deserves the scorn he's getting.

Re:You're unoriginal.

[urbanradar]

Name a type of music that has been more influential in the last 30 years.

How about, um, rock music? Rock music in all its form hasn't exactly been out of style and dead since early 1977.

Re:You're unoriginal.

[HappySqurriel]

Name a type of music that has been more influential in the last 30 years..

Well ... Define "influential" ...

If you consider music sales Rock music is more popular than Rap, Hip-Hop, R&B and Urban combined. If you look at critical acclaim Rap music has only been receiving critical acclaim and awards (outside of specific genre awards) in the past 5 or so years.

And what does it matter if a musical style has been "influential" if the initial argument was that it was unoriginal? You can be very generic (and even steal other people's ideas) and still be "influential".

Re:Is it April 1st already?

[ZachPruckowski]

See, that would be an acceptable answer if the label Timbaland is signed to didn't go around suing people. But the major labels and their artists can't come out against piracy while coming worse infringements themselves.*

Re:Piracy is okay if you are rich

[HappySqurriel]

I find it interesting that Slashdotters, for some reason, draw the line at making money off of someone else's work. Stealing it is okay, but selling it afterward is crossing the line?

There are two definitions of steal that seem appropriate to this discussion

1. To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
2. To present or use (someone else's words or ideas) as one's own.

Now the first definition is what you're applying to downloading, but a lot of people have problems calling 'Downloading' 'Stealing' because the owner of the music does not lose possession of the property and you (typically) have been given permission to obtain the music through other channels; you can tape music off of the radio for personal use and most albums will have (at least locally) been played on the radio when they're released.

The second definition is directly related to what has been claimed that timbaland has done.

There is room for debate on the download and no room for debate on the Timbaland situation.

Mod parent down; troll

[urbanradar]

1) Probably. 2) Who cares?

If your music is so bad that Timbaland is producing a copy of it, you should take up mime or tiddlywinks as a means of creative expression.

Consider Nelly Furtado: Intelligent, talented, creative musician who has been turned into a shite-generating whore. All thanks to Timbaland.

The person who made the original song cares. People who support justice care. Whether you like Timbaland or not doesn't enter into it. This is a question of principle.

Maybe we should just rewrite copyright law. "It is illegal to use media without permission from the original author, that is, unless the one doing the plaguarising is someone whom Slashdot user swordgeek doesn't like."

Re:hottest name?

[Dirtside]

Seriously, it's two thousand goddamn seven, the "What is this X the article speaks of?" thing is OVER. You're on the fucking Internet, go to Google or Wikipedia and do five seconds of research. </rant>