Plagiarism in electronic music

[Project_B]

http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1124



Very interesting article to spend 5 mins of a lunch break reading,

[deadly_habit]

[zonetrooper5]

[hurlingdervish]

"sample" a timbaland song and see how much he doesn't care on your ass.

[ketamine]

"sample" a timbaland song and see how much he doesn't care on your ass.

lol

[Dark Reign]

Timbaland is such a douche.

[deadcode]

Arseholery aside, Timbaland needs to learn the difference between 'bought' and 'brought' imo.

[morigami]

You're right about that. He was suggesting with the Casio example at the end that if you buy something, then you own it wholly. So if I buy a Timbaland tune then I own the right to use the tune to my liking?

Also he was suggesting that if you are ignorant as to who made the tune you sampled from, then it's ok. So ignorance of who the original author is makes sampling ok?

[Mad_EP]

I tend not to hate on Timbo too much: I respect the sound he created for the past decade.. but that video made him look like such an arrogant tool it is ridiculous.

My favorite line was the bit about how sometimes he is under deadline to hand in a track to the label, so he doesn't have time to check the copyright on his samples. However--

1) He has a whole production team that works for him, surely he can get one of his underlings to do a Google search.

2) Last I heard, he gets paid upwards of $250,000 per beat. I think for that amount of money, he can afford to make sure he isn't blatantly ripping someone off.


To be honest, I think he really DOES know when he is ripping someone off, and he just doesn't care. He knows the label has no interest in selling him out, and the legal team for a major knows how to at least stall out any legal action from some small artist (at least long enough for the legal bills of the small artist to be too expensive to continue on with the suit).

[jsills]

ok timbaland being a money grubbing ahole aside how does this community feel about sampling? its a dividing line for some people. i look at it like this, if you jack a straight loop and dont alter it in any way (vanilla im looking at you) and claim it as your own your an idiot. if you are releasing material with samples, the original artist should get credit. on the other hand ive sampled records and mangle the sample to the point that i dont even remember where it came from. now im not releasing anything officially so im not worried but if i were id sure as hell be paying attention to who the original was. i appreciate the art of creative sampling. if your just jacking loops you probably suck anyway.

[redraven]

I think sampling is okay, but you have to change it up enough that people can't tell where you sampled from... that song is an EXACT match, which is NOT sampling. Like that Chase & Status - Eastern Jam... yeah that vocal snippet is SAMPLED, but the rest of the song is COMPLETELY different from the original.

[Uncle Mike]

yeah man there definitely is a difference between "sampling" and just plain "plagiarism".
we've all had this same problem and ongoing conflict of : " goddamn that sounds sweet ima have to sample it". well
you can...but not so far as where you have to go and call it a remix.
and that makes the difference.
you can either sample or you have to remix.
and thats all there is. its in black and white.
either sample or just fucking remix the thing.

[mico viejo]

that article is just a lot of bits of other articles all cobbled together

[slothrop]

ok timbaland being a money grubbing ahole aside how does this community feel about sampling? its a dividing line for some people.

I really don't understand how anyone in a scene that owes so much to jungle (and, less directly, to hip hop) can be in any way prudish about sampling. You listen to the old stuff, and basically anything's fair game - jacking choruses, melodies, other producers' sounds, other producers' sampled drums. And these were the guys who were not so much pushing the envelope as tearing it into little shreds and then spitting on it on a monthly basis.

So now when people come over like if you use any more than a single drum hit you're not being true to your creative soul or if you sample a melody you'll never be really original it seems a bit mad. It's like preaching about vegetarianism while eating a steak.

[therapist]

Timbaland is such a nob. I don't think 'you like dubstep, which has a lot of sampling in, therefore you can't rip on Timbaland' is a valid argument. Like someone said before just call it a fucking remix if you're going to steal whole verse/chorus sections from opne song and re-arrange them yourself. If Rusko called his 'cold shoulder' (just for example) his own track rather than crediting it as a remix I'd think he's as much of a prick as Timbaland.

[DZA]

I think sampling is okay, but you have to change it up enough that people can't tell where you sampled from... that song is an EXACT match, which is NOT sampling. Like that Chase & Status - Eastern Jam... yeah that vocal snippet is SAMPLED, but the rest of the song is COMPLETELY different from the original.

What about Chase & Status - Saxons then, the melody is from a metallica tune

[collige]

I think sampling is okay, but you have to change it up enough that people can't tell where you sampled from...

Amen?