Copyright on Individual drum hits?

[sonarman]

I'm sure this topic has been covered in some way or another but what the hell...
I've created a cool drumkit using samples from my favourite dead drummer's kit (Gene Krupa).
These are individual hits: snare, hat, tom etc.. Are individual hits covered by copyright?

By the way, Favourite live drummer is Herlin Riley.

[C00kie]

There are copyrights on the recordings themselves. On the cover there is a notice: "no part of this work may be redistributed without approval bladibladibla"

[sonarman]

Ah! So if was to go back in a time machine, record Krupa's kit myself, I'd be okay? There must be some nerdy synth programmer who can build me a time machine.

[pernophus]

doesn't redistributing mean: make an illegal copy of the sample pack and sell it on the market ?

[C00kie]

A copy is always legal, unless explicitly forbidden.

What I don't understand: who was playing this dead-drummer's kit? The man himself? Or was it you holding the sticks & beating up his defenseless kit?

[pernophus]

I guess we're talking about a sample CD or something...
usually there's stated if you may use them for commercial purposes or not

[ericj23]

but of course the burden of proof of useage lies with the prosecutor - so if you hide the hit well enough - well you takes your chances and maybe pays your money

[pernophus]

the way like mylo does, you mean

[james0tucson]

These are individual hits: snare, hat, tom etc.. Are individual hits covered by copyright?

Did you take your samples from a copyrighted source?

It's not clear from your message what you sampled.

[Funkybot]

It is probably illegal, but no one's ever been prosecuted for it that I know of. Now if you took entire loops/passages and tried using them in your songs you'd be seriously asking for trouble, but no one's going to go after you for individual hits in all likelyhood. The ratio of legal costs alone vs what was actually taken and how it was used would prevent any such prosecution, plus the burden of proof would be so great that it would be almost impossible to prove in court.

[sonarman]

I think you're all basically saying its illegal.
Gene Krupa is probably one of the most famous drummers in the world (Benny Goodman's drummer) and his drum sounds are quite distinctive. I would have been stealing them of a regular CD. I wondered if musical copyright expired after a certain time. With literature its either 50 or 75 years...i think.

[james0tucson]

it would be almost impossible to prove in court.

He announced that he was doing it in public. That's all you'd need!

[herodotus]

I think you're all basically saying its illegal.
Gene Krupa is probably one of the most famous drummers in the world (Benny Goodman's drummer) and his drum sounds are quite distinctive. I would have been stealing them of a regular CD. I wondered if musical copyright expired after a certain time. With literature its either 50 or 75 years...i think.

Same for music.

But the copyright can be renewed.

[herodotus]

I have been looking for a while and can find no copyright information on Benny Goodman's works.

The song in question was written by Louis Prima and arranged by Jimmy Mundy. And in any case, form SR did not even exist when this song was recorded. As this is the form that would be used to register an individual drum hit (the song itself, in a sheet music sense, is form PA), I say: GO FOR IT!!!

[Funkybot]

it would be almost impossible to prove in court.

He announced that he was doing it in public. That's all you'd need!

Even so, the only way it'd be worth it to go after him financially would be if he made millions off the work he did with those samples. So we need to ask herodotus, "do you plan on making millions of dollars on tracks made with these samples?" Also, don't even think of putting out a commercial sample library with these, that'd be just asking for legal action.