As I hear it, didn't HC's people approach FSOL's
people to get clearance and he was told to rerecord everything. I
think there was an intention of making it a legal and above board remix, but
FSOL weren't happy. It wouldn't suprise me if someone came along (from outside
the scene) and did an official DnB remix rerecording everything.(Gym n Tonic
styleeee).
Future Music magazine recreated the tune a few
years back (in a tutorial), rerecording everything and placed all the
individual components on a CD (girls voice, breaks, melodies etc.), so it's
not too hard to re-record and it would just be a cover-version, as you're not
taking original samples.
A good example of how you can get away with
samples, is learning from Smiley and PJ's (Shut Up and Dance) experience. No
one (otherwards the MCPS -- the royalty collectors) never really gave a f***
about the odd Duran Duran sample here and there, because they were
underground. But when Raving I'm Raving went overground, the MCPS pounced and
effectivley put them out of business. Obviously, SUaD never bothered with
sample clearence before it was released, because they never bothered in the
past and always got away with it.
Some info here (or if you're bored at
work):
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2003 8:21
PM
Subject: [dnb-prod] Re:
Copyright/sampling issues
It's not really a case of being uppity... we all sample to some
extent - but the question at hand is how much can we expect to get away with
without getting busted. *Technically*, using any sample, no matter how
large or small, from a copyrighted work without permission from the
copyright owner is a violation of that copyright. But in reality,
because drum n bass is so underground and generally put out by independent
(i.e. poor) labels, there is usually a pretty low risk of 1. getting
caught and 2. getting sued.
Because drum n bass is so independent, people get away with a LOT of
things that would never fly if they were on a major label. This
includes everything from Dylan'&Loxy's Cali Curse sampling NWA to the
absolute plethora of house accapellas showing up in every other release
these days. (Im actually a bit surprised that Defected hasnt started to go after
people. Either they have a very liberal policy or else no body over there
listens to drum n bass at all.) But because everyone in dnb is generally so
poor it's not really a profitable strategy to litigate, so generally the
worst you can expect to happen is a cease and desist and perhaps forfeiture
of all proceeds from the release.
For drum n bass, the main thing you will need to watch out for is
vocals. 99% of drums, riffs, keys, fx, etc. you can get away with
sampling, unless they are really obvious, the samples are very well known
and you didnt change them whatsoever. However, anything that could be
considered a "remix" is generally not going to fly. This probably
includes Andy's "On and On" remix as well as all you cats that love to drop
hip hop accapella's over dnb beats. (There is a reason that all those
hip hop remixes come out on white labels even though we all know who did
them.)
In
some rather well known recent examples - FSOL got wind of the
Papau New Guinea remix that High Contrast did and put the kaybosh on
it. Kemal's "Fucking Hostile" tune suffered a similar fate due to the
Pantera sample in it.
Even tho you can generally get away with
quite a lot, be wary that if you sign your track to a label, they will
probably have you sign a contract stating that your tune doesnt infring on
any 3rd party copyrights and that you will indemnify them from any
culpability if they do not.
Personally i sample just about anything and
everything with reckless abandon. But by the time the material has
been chopped, tweaked, twisted and worked in the tune the resemblance is so
slim that i dont spend much time worrying about it. However a couple
of my recent tunes have used some rather obvious vocal parts that may cause
issues if they end up being released. One used a small, but
recognizable recent hip hop sample and the other used large phrases from an
old, but well known house accapella. These are the types of things you
need to be most wary of.
peace and happy sampling
=)
trust
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