Hip Hop community speaks out against new sampling laws

[davida.b.]

Hip-hopping mad artists rap copyright ruling
By Casey Ross
http://news.bostonherald.com/localR...articleid=43466

The Man is trying to kill rap again.

That's the worry of Hub hip hop artists after a federal court ruling clamped down on the practice of sampling from other artists' work in the creation of new music.

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that using even unrecognizable snippets from an existing work is illegal without a license and compensation to the original artist.

``Essentially, this is an anti-hip hop law,'' said Boston producer and lyricist DJ Fakts One. ``The basis of hip hop is taking music from different cultures and making it dope by putting it all together.''

The court's ruling centers on a song by the rap group NWA that lifts a three-note guitar riff from ``Get Off Your Ass and Jam'' by George Clinton and the Funkadelics. The case was one of 800 filed in Nashville, Tenn., over the lifting of music snippets.

Local hip hop musicians and academics say they support compensating artists when their work is clearly recognizable in a new song, but they say the court ruling went too far in requiring compensation for even tiny samples.

``Hip hop has always been a derivative form of music,'' said Akrobatik, a Boston-based artist. ``I just don't like it when the federal government gets involved in things like this . . . and defines what music is supposed to be.''

The court's action means musicians will be required to undergo long and costly negotiations to get approval for all work that contains material from other artists. Some believe the judge's ruling is unenforceable because of technology that can make original samples nearly impossible to recognize.

``It's a nuisance and a shame,'' Peter Alhadeff, a professor at the Berklee School of Music, said of the ruling. ``I'm wondering if it hinders creativity more than it helps it, as copyright law is supposed to do.''

[Shallow]

Why don't these losers just pick up an instrument and learn how to play it. Then they'll learn how to create original music and then they won't face this problem. I hate how they use the excuse of it being "a part of hip hop". Shit man, just stop fucking complaining. If you don't create it yourself, then pay the person that did. It's as simple as that. Anyone against this wouldn't be if they had one of their original compositions stolen by some rap producer.

[M Dogg™]

Why don't these losers just pick up an instrument and learn how to play it. Then they'll learn how to create original music and then they won't face this problem. I hate how they use the excuse of it being "a part of hip hop". Shit man, just stop fucking complaining. If you don't create it yourself, then pay the person that did. It's as simple as that. Anyone against this wouldn't be if they had one of their original compositions stolen by some rap producer.

if you know anything abou hip-hop history, you'd know that hip-hop came from sampling. Many songs, DJs, would loop a certain part so that it would be easier to dance. Over time, emcees would rhyme over these loops and rap music was started. And if you don't like the history, or the art form, then why are you here?

[Trauma-san]

I think ultimately, this law is useless, since many competant dj's and producers interpolate songs anyways.  What's interpolation? You take a beat you like, and recreate it.  Since the music has been published, you only have to pay standard royalties (6 cents? something crazy) for using their published song, but the performance is yours, since you re-created it.  That's why Dre doesn't really 'sample', he re-creates or interpolates the beat, much much cheaper. 

DJ Premier is FUCKED, though. 

[davida.b.]

DJ Premier is FUCKED, though. 

Thats the part that saddens me the most

Edit: and don't forget Kanye and Heatmakerz, they're known for sampling.

[Leggy Hendrix]

Why don't these losers just pick up an instrument and learn how to play it. Then they'll learn how to create original music and then they won't face this problem. I hate how they use the excuse of it being "a part of hip hop". Shit man, just stop fucking complaining. If you don't create it yourself, then pay the person that did. It's as simple as that. Anyone against this wouldn't be if they had one of their original compositions stolen by some rap producer.

you're a dumbass...

anyway, it just means people are gonna have to be smarter about how they sample...i guarantee that this will not stop people like Premo, 9th Wonder, Kanye etc from using samples...

[Shallow]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

When did I say this would stop sampling. I just said these hip hop "musicians", and I use that term very loosely, should stop fucking complaining. If rock acts started stealing lyrics from hip hop then I would expect the rappers to get paid for that. You wanna know why it bothers me so much? I'll tell you. It's because these producers steal music and then loop it. The song they steal from is already amazing but all these hip hop only kids seem to think the hip hop producer created it. I know this ruling is about small samples, but stealing someones 3 notes and reversing them is still stealing to me.


Yeah it's a part of hip hop, but so what? It's been a part of hip hop for too long. The piano was a significant part of the rock n roll sound in the 50s, it helped create what rock n roll is. How many times do you hear a piano in current rock n roll? It's not often, I'll tell you that. What I am implying is that maybe it's time for hip hop to change too. Nothing lasts forever until it changes. The whole sound is getting old, and old fast. Time for something new. That something new could very well be real musicians contributing to the genre more so than they currently do. Right now all we have are real musicians conforming to the hip hop sound, when what we need is them to start creating new sounds. Hip hop hasn't created a new sound since the scratch, and even that sounds a lot like stuff Jmmy Page, and Jimi Hendrix would do during guitar solos. Primo would just rip off jazz, Dre ripped of funk, RZA ripped of sou, and Puffy ripped off, well just about any song that was a hit in the past.. Even the west coast siren is ripped off, and it's the trademark. I don't hate hip hop, I'm just getting bored with it and yearn for something new.

[Leggy Hendrix]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

When did I say this would stop sampling. I just said these hip hop "musicians", and I use that term very loosely, should stop fucking complaining.

only the first part of my previous post was directed at you...the rest was just a general statement...

If rock acts started stealing lyrics from hip hop then I would expect the rappers to get paid for that. You wanna know why it bothers me so much? I'll tell you. It's because these producers steal music and then loop it. The song they steal from is already amazing but all these hip hop only kids seem to think the hip hop producer created it.

see my previous post...

p.s. if you are so bored with all these the way hip hop is now why are you here? there are plenty of other boards that will cater more towards your needs...

[Shallow]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I said I wanted something new and fresh from hip hop, and I think this is a proper forum to express that.

[Don Jacob]

this is a good law wether you like it or not, the "art" of sampling has lost all meaning


and again wether you like it or not hip hop has helped ruin the musical integrity of popular music

[Kill]

some producers will have to change the way they sample songs, but i agree with M Dogg, sampling is how hiphop got all started and i do think these laws are sad, but prolly they're practically useless anyways

[T-Dogg]

I don't really see how this law will bring drastic changes... It just says that if you sample anything, you gotta pay for it. How's that gonna stop the likes of Kanye or Premo? Kanye's CD booklet has all the used samples credited, most likely meaning they paid to use them too. What will he have to do differently in the future because of this law, I don't understand. If he hadn't paid for the samples on his album, don't you think he would've been hit with a million copyright violation lawsuits? You've always had to pay for samples - now you just gotta pay for the non-obvious ones too.

They've phrased it funny in the news bit though - "using even unrecognizable snippets from an existing work is illegal without a license and compensation to the original artist". If it's really "unrecognizeable", meaning nobody can recognize the work as their own, wouldn't the sampler have gotten away with it then?

[Kill]

this is a good law wether you like it or not, the "art" of sampling has lost all meaning


and again wether you like it or not hip hop has helped ruin the musical integrity of popular music

1. i don't think i agree, but can u explain: how did this "art" have "meaning" back in the days and how has it "lost it all" now?

2. i don't necessarily disagree, but could you tell me what u understand by "the musical integrity" of pop and how and by doing what hiphop has contributed to ruining it? and what/who else has?

really, not tryin to start beef, but i wanna know what exactly ure talkin about

[On The Edge of Insanity]

To be honest there has only been one court ruling, and that was just in Boston, based off of Master P using an NWA song that sampled that Parliament track in one of his films. Because the sample wasn't originally paid for by NWA, the company that owned the rights to the Parliament recording decided to get some money out of it and sue Master P for copyright infringement. This ruling will take ages to become a nationwide thing, and even if it does, people like Premier aren't gonna be hugely effected cause they pay to clear samples at the moment anyway, and anything that is "unrecognisable" is just that, so how is anyone gonna prove which recording such a sample originally came from anyway? The independent labels will still not bother clearing everything, because the majority of the time it is cheaper for them to just not clear anything and risk getting sued for a couple of samples, rather than go through and clear every single sample on an album. It just doesn't make any sense when you are only gonna sell between 5,000 - 20,000 albums.

[BIG.DADDY]

Kanye west is definitely FUCKED